Black Lives Under Nazism

Erin McGlothlin, author of The Mind of the Holocaust Perpetrator in Fiction and Nonfiction:
The experience of people of African descent in the Third Reich has been hauntingly absent in the public imagination of the Holocaust. With her penetrating and sophisticated study, Sarah Casteel illuminates the lived histories of Black victims and survivors of the Nazi regime, thereby expanding the canon of Holocaust representation.

Robbie Aitken, coauthor of Black Germany: The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884-1960:
Sarah Phillips Casteel’s rich, imaginative, and compelling study seeks to make visible the Black experience of the wartime period. Through her deft analysis of a diverse range of Black testimonial and creative work she brilliantly illustrates the limitations and possibilities these offer in creating countermemories of the Holocaust.

Michael Rothberg, author of The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators:
Sarah Phillips Casteel’s beautifully written Black Lives Under Nazism offers a startling new account of the memory of World War II and the Holocaust that centers Black artists and writers. Moving from internment camp art and memoirs by historical eyewitnesses to the novels, photography, and dance of later generations, Casteel’s book reveals how certain histories are rendered invisible while simultaneously showing us the power of art and literature to reanimate the forgotten past and decolonize hegemonic perspectives. Black Lives Under Nazism is a fascinating work of recovery and a strong argument for a relational approach to memory.