Film director Amma Asante stumbled upon an old photo of a black female student shot in Nazi Germany.
She stood among the white students staring at the camera and glanced mysteriously.
Curious about Photos
Who is this girl, what is she doing in Germanyset the award-winning film-
On a road to touch hands, Amandra Steinberg and George McKay starred in a new movie.
This is an imaginary mix-
The Secret Relationship between ethnic teenagers and members of Hitler's youth is based on historical records.
Warning: Some people may find some content of this article in the Nazi era, from 1933 to 1945, Africa
Thousands of Germans.
There was no uniform experience, but over time they were banned from establishing relationships with white people, excluded from the type of education and employment, some were sterilized and others were sent to concentration camps.
But their story is basically unknown.
It took Asante MS 12 years to get her description of the time on the big screen.
"There is often a form of disbelief, questioning, and sometimes even distrust of the hard life these people have had," when she talks about her research into the film, she told the BBC about the reaction she received from some people. The African-
The German community originated in the country's short-lived empire.
Sailors, servants, students and artists from now
The day Cameroon, Togo, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Namibia came to Germany.
According to historian Robbie Aitken, the floating population became more stable after World War I broke out in 1914.
Some African soldiers who fought for Germany in the war also settled there.
But there is a second group that continues to exist to fuel the Nazi fear of racial mixing.
As part of a treaty signed by Germany after its defeat in World War I, the French army occupied the Rhineland region in western Germany.
France used at least 20,000 soldiers from the African Empire, mainly from North Africa and West Africa, patrolling the area, and some of them also established relationships with German women.
The derogatory term "Rhineland asshole" was created in the 1920 s, referring to 600-800 mixed-
The result of these relationships is ethnic children.
The term expresses some people's imaginary fear of not being purely racial. Made-
The story and racist cartoons of African soldiers who sexually plundered at that time attracted people's attention. While anti-
The Jews occupied a former.
The outstanding position of the Nazi ideological center, a line in Mein Kampf, published in 1925, outlines the political beliefs of party leader Adolfo Hitler, linking Jews and blacks in
Hitler wrote: "It was the Jews who brought black people into Rhineland, and it was also the Jews . " "There are always the same secret ideas and clear goals to destroy the pesky white race by necessarily causing slander.
"Once in power, the Nazi obsession with Jews and racial purity has gradually led to the Holocaust, the industrial slaughter of 6 million Jews during World War II, and the mass murder of Roma, disabled people and some SLAs.
Mr. Aitken, who studied the lives of black Germans, said they were also targeted.
Although not in the same system way.
He described them as being assimilated by the Nazi "escalating racial policy radicalization.
He said there was evidence that their "other" apartheid "policies implied the goal of genocide ".
The Nuremberg law was passed in 1935, including a law prohibiting Jews from marrying other Germans.
The provisions were then amended to include black and Roma in the same category as Jews.
But the fear of racial mixing remains, in 1937,
Ethnic children from Rhineland are targeted for forced sterilization.
Hans Hauck was one of at least 385 people who had surgery.
Mr. Hauck is a soldier from Italy and a white German. He appeared in 1997 documentary, the forgotten victim of Hitler.
He talked about how he was secretly taken away for vasectomy.
He was then given a certificate of sterilization to allow him to continue his work, and he had to sign an agreement that he would not marry or have sex with someone "of German descent.
"It's both depressing and depressing, and I think it's only half --human".
Another victim, Thomas holzasher, said in the film: "Sometimes I'm happy that I can't have children.
At least they were not humiliated by me.
Mr Aitken, "few people talk about their experiences while they are alive, and" not many people are trying to find out what most of them end up ", he is one of the few historians to study the subject.
"It is worth remembering that the Nazis have also deliberately destroyed many documents related to camps and sterilization, which makes it difficult to rebuild the fate of groups and individuals," he said . ".
MS Asante, who has also written and directed for Belle and the UK, says many of these people have suffered identity crises.
They had a German parent who saw themselves as German, but they were also isolated and never fully embraced.
The children live in two places at the same time.
They are both insiders and outsiders. year-old said.
Despite their different experiences, all black Germans were persecuted under Nazi rule.
The German colonial era, especially the genocide attempts of the Herrero and Namas in Namibia, has led to a negative perception of Africans.
After Hitler came to power, they were harassed, humiliated in public, excluded from work and education, and basically became stateless.
There is some resistance.
For example, Sheila JRI, a mixed race, is Communist and anti-communistNazi agitator.
He was kidnapped and murdered in 1933.
After the outbreak of the war in 1939, their situation became more dangerous.
People in mixed relationships may be targeted for sterilization, imprisonment or murder.
This is a fear of Theodor Wonja Michael, born in Berlin in 1925.
The son of a Cameroonian man and a German woman who appeared in so-
On 2017, he told the German broadcaster DW that he was called the "human zoo" or the ethnographic exhibition.
Huge skirts, drums, dances and songs
"The idea is that the people on display are all foreigners, exotic and show the audience what their home country looks like," he said . ".
"It's basically just a big show.
"After the Nazis came to power, he knew he had to stay invisible as much as possible, especially when he was a teenager.
"Of course, with such a face, I will never disappear completely, but I tried.
"I avoid contact with white women.
That's terrible.
"I will be disinfected, and I may also be accused of racial stigma," he said on DW Film Afro . "Germany.
In 1942, Heinrich hiccups, one of the designers of the massacre, ordered a census of black people living in Germany.
This may indicate the beginning of a mass murder plan, although such a plan has never been developed.
On the contrary, there is evidence that at least 20 black Germans ended up in concentration camps in Germany.
In the documentary "victims of Hitler's Forgotten", Elizabeth Morton said: "People will simply disappear and you won't know what happened to them . "
Asante MS is trying to provide new clues to these stories by touching both hands. As a British-
Ghanaian, she believes that the role and existence of African expatriates are often ignored in European history --
Her film, she said, will make it difficult to deny that black people have suffered in the hands of the Nazis.
"I think there is a lot of ignorance, and there are a lot of people who are currently dismissive of what these people have experienced.
"Hands Touch is currently available on various streaming services in the UK and the US.