Visit the 2008 Real Women Archives
Visit the 2007 Real Women Archives
Ilse Moellgaard, a Danish child, survived the holocaust but never fully recovered from the experience.Neither have her four daughters. At six years old, she watched her father murdered in her home in Kiel, Schleswig – Holstein. She was separated from her mother, brother and sister and placed in a concentration camp. When war ended, she was released to an orphanage in the English Occupied Zone. Refusing to be restrained, desperate to find her family, she escaped from the orphanage, called herself Elsie Thompson, and became known as a displaced person.
She hid in bombed out houses and later did domestic work until she managed to meet George Larey, a US Soldier who married her and brought her to Texas in the late 1950′s where together they had two daughters. She had given two daughters up for adoption before leaving Germany. One was the product of rape by one of her employers.
I discovered Ilse unwittingly in 1994 and had the privilege of hosting her in my home for two weeks. I got to know and love her in the next few years but it wasn’t easy. When she died in 2002, we were not speaking. I didn’t know until 2004 that she had died. Her daughter, whom I had never met called to tell me the news.
Ilse was my mother. She died estranged from all four of her daughters. In a video interview of Ilse on her deathbed, she acknowledges only the two daughters born in the US. She had been searching for her oldest daughter that had been given up for adoption before she died. She planned for many years to tell her story but her dreams were never realized. I will be her voice.
I have met one of my sisters, through whose efforts we have recently found another. Though I have become acquainted with my youngest sister via phone and video, we have never yet met in person. We are still looking for the eldest of Ilse’s daughters..My sisters and I share a dream of finding our remaining lost sister and visiting Germany together to get to know our mother and uncover the lost details of her life, perhaps to meet extended family members.
My personal challenge is unique from my sisters and reuniting has not been a cakewalk. I am black, my sisters are white. Since I was the product of rape, it is doubtful that I will ever know the identity of my father.
While I felt different from my family since I can remember, my adoption was only confirmed when I was about 38 years old. It was then that I discovered that I was a part of a group of children who have been referred to as the Brown Babies, Kriegskinder, Mischlings; mixed race children abandoned after WWII, who were either raised in orphanages in Germany or adopted by African American families in the US. I belong to the latter group. Although I was born in Germany, Ilse was considered a displaced person, so I came to the US as Staatenlos, a person without a country .
After finding my mother, I discovered an organization called the Black German Cultural Society, Inc., which was established by other Black German children born after WWII. Our experiences vary as did those of our birth families. I have been the president of BGCS since 2005 and have lectured both on the Black German Experience and Blacks and the Holocaust. We have been working together with Professor Leroy Hopkins to create a collective autobiography for academic purposes that contains a portion of my personal story prior to my mother’s death and finding my sisters. I have been interviewed in a video documentary cooperatively by professors of NYU and UMass.
The AfroGerman movement in Germany begun by May Ayim and others continues to be documented and the Brown Babies are presently discussed in academic circles by historians. As a group, we are beginning to take our place in history and continue to strive for recognition in the African Diaspora as Black Europeans. We would like our history recorded through our own collective voice.
My personal journey continues. When I met Ilse, I started on the road to self. I have only begun to discover my authentic identity as Rosemarie. I was born of rape in postwar Germany to a Danish holocaust survivor. I was raised as Wanda Lynn, an African American, in the US as an only child by adoring Christian parents who loved me so much, they never wanted me to know who I was or from whence or whom I came.
As noted time and time again, the holocaust echoes today and its tragic implications are far reaching.My mother, my sisters and I are both victims and survivors. Through my personal experience, I offer others the opportunity to view the holocaust through a different lens.
By telling my story, I hope to add insight into the complex issues surrounding the trauma of the primal wound and transnational adoption. I hope to encourage a new look at the concepts of individual identity, nationality, culture and race and war.
Further, it is my greatest desire to bring healing through self discovery for myself, my children, my sisters and others whose lives and experiences may possess elements of my own. I wish to validate Ilse’s life and celebrate her strength. I wish to express my gratitude to God and my parents, without whom this story would not be one of survival but tragedy. I want my children and their children to inherit the legacy of a victory over rather than a victim of hatred and inhumanity.
ROSA PARKS – WE REMEMBER MAMA
FEBRUARY 4, 1913 – OCTOBER 24, 2005
Still waiting for my change to come..
Seem like I’m the only one..
Wait day and night
Oh why Lord why
Do my blessings crawl ….but my troubles run..
By Diane Cameron from “Black and Blue”
Protest has always served as the engine that fuels change. History has recorded demonstrations of resistance. In 1775, Bunker Hill was the result of American protest of British rule. In 1861 at Fort Sumter the first “family feud” came as a result of the conflict between the Union and the Confederates over the slavery-states rights issue.
In the early 1900′s women workers in the needle trades in New York protested child labor, sweatshop working conditions while demanding women’s voting rights. In the 60′s student activism erupted all across campuses in the United States opposing the war in Vietnam. Who can forget Neil Young haunting anti-war song, “Ohio”, referring to the incident on the campus of Kent State where 4 students were gunned down by the National Guard during a war protest.
Perhaps the most internationally televised illustration of defiance occurred during the Olympics of 1968. At the Mexico City games, African American athlete Tommie Smith raised his right, black-glove-covered fist in the air to represent black power in America while fellow Olympiad John Carlos’ left, black-covered fist represented unity. Around Smith’s neck a black scarf stood for black pride and collectively their black socks sans shoes stood for black poverty. The picture of these two appeared on just about every newspaper around the world.
Meanwhile the winds of intolerance toward racial inequality were radically blowing strong in America. Marches, sit-ins and boycotts (oh my) became the status quo. Flashback to December, 1955, eight years after Jackie Robinson integrated the Brooklyn Dodgers and eighteen months after the landmark Brown vs. Brown Supreme Court Decision which desegregated schools. An Alabama seamstress made a choice changing the entire course of civil rights in America.
After departing the Montgomery Fair Department Store where she worked as a seamstress, a dignified and indomitable lady boarded the Cleveland Ave. bus as she had many times before and sat down in row 5. Apparently the bus began to get crowded and although she was sitting in the designated colored section of the bus, blacks were supposed to relinquish their seats to whites in the event there were no other seats available. A white male passenger boarded the bus and the driver demanded Mrs. Parks give up her seat, she refused and was subsequently arrested. Although she was not the first to defy the local ordinance, I believe by predestination the mantle was hers. Several biographical accounts report that she disobeyed bus driver James Blake’s order to give up her seat because she was physically tired.
In Mrs. Parks own words, “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” In a later interview, she recalled, “When I got off from work that evening of December 1, I went to Court Square as usual to catch the Cleveland Avenue bus home. I didn’t look to see who was driving when I got on, and by the time I recognized him, I had already paid my fare. It was the same driver who had put me off the bus back in l943, twelve years earlier. He was still tall and heavy, with red, rough-looking skin. And he was still mean-looking. I didn’t know if he had been on that route before “they switched the drivers around sometimes. I do know that most of the time if I saw him on a bus, I wouldn’t get on it.”
Researching the life of someone as enigmatic as Rosa Parks often draws conflicting accounts. There are rumors that her bus defiance was planned as if she was part of a plot to incite a boycott. I don’t know if this it accurate or not, but I will rely on her confession. “I did not get on the bus to get arrested,” she has said. “I got on the bus to go home.” Truth or embellishment, the entire civil rights movement unanimously must concur her tolerance for continuing to endure the humiliation ended December 1, 1955 and simultaneously weakened the stronghold of Jim Crow.
Days later she was tried, found guilty, paid a $10.00 fine, $4.00 court cost and walked out of that courtroom to help rewrite history starting with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 381 days later after crippling the City Transportation System the ordeal ended when the United States Supreme court ruled bus segregation in Alabama was unconstitutional. In the interim, call it divine intervention, fate, providence or God’s will, the ensuing boycott merged two formidable future icons of the civil rights struggle, Ralph David Abernathy and a young, little known Minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King. Abernathy, King along with Rosa Parks and the trinity of non-violent civil rights activism had been birthed.
Rosa Parks continued her work striving for Civil Rights until she was well into age. One would think that in her latter years she would live a trouble free life. However in August 1994, she was attacked by a home invader looking for money. Mrs. Parks reflects, “I pray for this young man and the conditions in our country that have made him this way. Despite the violence and crime in our society, we should not let fear overwhelm us. We must remain strong.” What a statement to make in a time where unintentionally cutting off a driver in traffic can be unforgivable. Rosa was the recipient of incalculable honors, awarded two dozen honorary doctorates from Universities Worldwide as well as an honorary membership from the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She received the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize and in 1996 President Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Using my journalistic license, I presume her most endearing accolade came from South African herald of social change, Nelson Mandela. She was invited to South Africa in 1990 as part of an entourage to welcome Mandela who had just been freed from 27 years of imprisonment on Robben Island. He noticed her in the reception line and beckoned for her attention by calling her name. When she responded Mandela told her, “You sustained me while I was in prison all those years.” When I read this I thought, Well”well”even heroes need a hero.
Nearly three years since her passing and how befitting she would leave us during October the official month of change. Her life was a ensemble of change and perhaps even the seasons gifted the world a bittersweet reminder of her each Fall. Leaves from green to red and gold, temperatures from hot and warm to mercurial. Tangerine skies and frequent rain. I can imagine a myriad of angels on assignment, riding a golden chariot reverently carrying her back to heaven.
Under their wings special orders to allow her the seat of her choice. Mama Rosa, it is true, you are the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. Thank you for your life, there are millions of us who benefit today from the decision you made 52 years ago. A songwriter once said “Only the good die young”, I say, “not so, sometimes they live to be 92.”
27- 29th September 2007
Our gathering here is an indication of the necessity for the EU to dialog with Black Women’s Organisations EU-wide. The European Year for Intercultural Dialog therefore presents an opportunity to initiate and strengthen partnerships and alliances. We welcome purposeful efforts to engage with the EU in the implementation and in consequence in the securing and exercising of our Rights as full citizens of the EU and EEA.Black European Women Congress 2007 Recommendations to the EU
1. Identity and Empowerment Despite the legal framework, forms of multiple discrimination, including gendered racism, continue to exist. The Black European Women Congress recommends the enforcement and implementation of Article 13 to eradicate all forms of discrimination across all member states.
2. Challenges faced by Black youths Educational System and Civil Services must incorporate Anti-Racism training and qualification for personnel at all levels and recruit Black professionals. In addition, we recommend to set up legal guidelines for all public and corporate educational institutions to offer anti-racist material, services and curriculum.
3. Psychological conflicts affecting black communities especially Black women and children The Black European Women Congress recognizes mental health as a primary issue pertaining to Black communities dealing with racism. Government must provide financial and structural means to allow the establishment of autonomous institutions that provide mental health care for Black people dealing with the effects of racism.
4. Current Barriers of Black Women to the European Labour Market Companies and employers are required to implement Human Resources measures and tools designed to recruit Black personnel reflecting the diversity they express in their mission statements.
5. Political Participation Development of programs which assure, support and include appropriate political representation and participation of Black women.
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