Letters: Jesse Owens, a hero in Germany

Re “Author inspired by Haley,� Obituary, Jan 23

Author and magazine editor Hans Massaquoi, the son of a German mother and a Liberian father, believed that he was spared the fate of German Jews because “blacks were so few in number that they were relegated to low-priority status on the Nazi lineup for extermination.�

This may be partly true, because blacks in Germany were indeed rare at the time. But to the typical German under Nazi rule, a black man would be considered something akin to viewing a circus attraction, strange but not primarily an “inferior� non-Aryan.

I recall my time as a young boy in Berlin during the 1936 Summer Olympics, when the undoubted hero on the German street was black American sprinter Jesse Owens, regardless of Hitler’s preferences. I can still hear the enthusiastic chorus of the German spectators chanting “Jesse Owens! Jesse Owens! Jesse Owens U.S.A.!�

Tom Tugend

Sherman Oaks

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