by Cathryn Horwitz
The German consul general announced the four Bronx high school students selected to participate in an exchange program created to end ignorance among Germans and African-Americans.
The U.N. consul general to the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Hans-Jürgen Heimsoeth, made the announcement on the morning of Friday, April 11 in the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice (LGJ).
The two week program will be an exchange between two students from LGJ with two students from the Eagle Academy for Young Men in the Bronx, and four German students from Gymnasium Runge FF, a public high school in Oranienburg.
An incident of a German military instructor using racist training techniques that circulated in a video online and in the media motivated Heimsoeth and administrators of LGJ and the Eagle Academy to create the program.
The video showed the instructor telling his trainee to imagine he was in the Bronx and a group of African-American men approached him and said insulted his mother. He then ordered the soldier to shoot while screaming an obscenity.
The German consulate in New York had responded within days of the video’s airing.
“Let’s make this an opportunity for growth in the relationship with the African-American community in the Bronx,” Heimsoeth said to describe his initial reaction.
Heimsoeth explained that the program’s intention is to improve relations and alleviate ignorance on both sides.
Assemblyman Michael Benjamin and his wife and chief of staff, Kennedy Benjamin, were integral to the program and the selection of the students.
Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin narrowed 12 final applicants to four: two freshman boys from the Eagle Academy—Isaiah Horstoa, 15, and Durrell Noel, 14—and two senior girls from LGJ—Angela Donkor and Nasais Veloz, both 17.
Donkor and Veloz are competing for valedictorian, Mrs. Benjamin said.
Michael Benjamin introduced his wife as “the brains behind this [the exchange’s] operation.” He explained that the incident occurred about a year ago. On April 27, 2007, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin met with the German ambassador and Heimsoeth to discuss German relations.
“We’re all the same people,” Mr. Benjamin said. “We’re all made by the same God.”
Kennedy Benjamin said she is “a person [who is] big on heart” as she introduced Gabriel Rohde, a German woman who organized many of the logistics of the trip, including finding host families for the American students traveling to Oranienburg.
“Your kids are in great hands,” she said to the parents regarding Rohde, whose cheeks were covered with tears.
When Rohde was in New York last October, Dr. Sabina Margalit of the Goethe Institute alerted her to the incident and the program the consulate was organizing, urging her to go to the consulate and get involved.
Rohde explained that Oranienburg is about a 20-mile train ride north of Berlin. She said the students will attend school in the mornings, and travel in the afternoons, including visiting Berlin, seeing former concentration camps and visiting the German parliament—the Bundestag. They will spend weekend with their host families, because Rohde said it was important that the students be involved in German family life.
Noel and Horstoa, the two participating students present at the announcement, said they were thrilled.
“I expect to meet new friends [and] live their life,” Horstoa said. He said he was excited at the opportunity to travel the world and meet new people.
Noel said he wants to connect with the world and experience the life of another.
The selection process for the students involved multiple interviews. The students wrote essays to explain their interest in the program, and Mr. Benjamin insisted on a question that asked the students to demonstrate their knowledge of the differences between American and German political systems.
Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin interviewed the students, and Heimsoeth met with a smaller group of applicants as well before the final four were selected.
Kennedy Benjamin explained that, though the four participants are not aware of this yet, their obligation upon their return is to educate their community and begin to break down the ignorance between Germans and African-Americans.
“The requirement …is that he’s got to come back…with a full report,” Kennedy explained to Horstoa’s mother, Sandra Singleton. “He’s our eyes. The other students’ eyes.”
Dr. Mary Nolan, a German history professor at New York University who has published two books on 20th century German history and has worked extensively on American-German perceptions and relationships, said in an interview that she was not surprised by the incident of the video.
“This is a part of what is so corrosive about military culture…that you are taught to see people not as human beings with any kind of humanity and complexity but as kind of dehumanized others,” Nolan said. She explained that racism like that in the video is not just present in German military, but military culture in general, including in the United States.
“I’m sure the German army has had its share of other epithets it might use in basic training,” she said. “I think it’s not so surprising that a training exercise would have something like, ‘Imagine you’re in the Bronx…’”
But from where does this invocation of African-Americans in the Bronx stem? Nolan theorized the source was the spread of American culture, including media and movies.
In response to LGJ and the Eagle Academy’s exchange program, Nolan said, “I think the more exchanges that go on, the better.”
Students from Alexandria, Ind. visiting LGJ as part of an exchange between Alexandria, the Bronx and Oranienburg also attended the announcement.
Kennedy Benjamin explained that the high schools chosen for the program were chosen specifically by their past record with exchange programs. Mrs. Benjamin named Eagle Academy specifically as a school with which she and Mr. Benjamin were familiar, with their reputable record and history of such programs.
The two week program will begin April 23 and run through May 3. Chaperones from the Bronx and Oranienburg will accompany the students from each side of the exchange.
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