Gunter Demning, a German artist, is working on a project called “Stolpersteine,” where the former houses of Nazi victims are identified with 10 inch square brass monument plaques known as “stumbling stones.” Shortly, Demning will be placing the first marker to honor an African victim of the Nazi regime.
The stone will be placed in front of the house on Brunnenstrasse in Berlin’s Mitte neighborhood formerly occupied by Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed, a Sudanese man, who enlisted as a soldier in the colonial forces of then German East Africa. In 1929 Mahjub moved to Berlin, where he worked as a waiter in an upscale hotel while holding bit roles in 20 films from 1934 to 1941.
In 1941, Mahjub was arrested by the Nazi authorities and accused of miscegenation. He died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin on Nov. 24, 1944.
The placement of the stone coincides with the release of a biography, “Truthful Till Death,” about Mahjub written by Africa scholar Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst.
Thus far, Demning’s stones have been placed throughout Germany, with the exception of Munich where they’re concerned with anti-Semitic activity, as well as Salzburg and Budapest.