Josef Nassy

Josef Nassy (1904–1976) was a black expatriate artist of Jewish descent. Nassy was living in Belgium when World War II began, and was one of about 2,000 civilians holding American passports who were confined in German internment camps during the war.

Born Joseph Johan Cosmo Nassy in Paramaribo, Suriname (Dutch Guiana), Nassy was the son of a well-to-do businessman. He descended on his father's side from Jews who had fled Spain during the Inquisition, although by his grandparents' generation the family no longer practised Judaism. In 1919, Nassy began to live with his father, who had moved to New York. He graduated from high school and, in 1926, earned a certificate in electrical engineering. In 1929, Nassy went to England, where he was employed in the installation of sound systems for a film company. The following year he was sent to Paris and then to Belgium for the same purpose. Before leaving for Europe, Nassy had obtained an American passport under the name Josef Nassy. He apparently claimed that he was born in San Francisco in 1899. Since San Francisco's public records had been destroyed in the earthquake of 1906, authorities issued the passport without further investigation.

Nassy continued to work for the same firm until 1934, when he decided to study painting. He was admitted to an academy of fine arts in Brussels, Belgium. In 1939, he married a Belgian and began earning a living as a portrait artist. The Germans occupied Belgium in May 1940, but Nassy and his wife did not leave. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States entered World War II. On April 14, 1942, four months after the United States entered the war, Nassy was arrested as an enemy national in German-occupied Belgium. For seven months, he was held in the Beverloo transit camp in Leopoldsburg, Belgium; he was then transferred to Germany and spent the rest of the war (1942-1945) at the Laufen internment camp and its subcamp, Tittmoning, both in Upper Bavaria.

...
Wikipedia