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He is Ahmed Hantout, a Moroccan who fell in love with Erna Else Hildegard Seidel, a Berlin-native. The end of the love story was not as tragic as the one of Romeo and Juliet, but the love they had for one another was equally as strong.
Ahmed Hantout was born in 1905 in Tangier. Son of Cherif Mohamed Ben Mohamed Hantout and Cherifa Fatoma bent Ismael, who both belonged to a religious family, he studied at a Medrassa and took some classes in both Spanish and French before leaving for Europe. Once there, the young man met Era Else Hildegard Seidel, a beautiful German woman who was born in Berlin in August 1911.
Ahmed Hantout was, in fact, a member of a circus troupe that toured at the time all European capitals. «In 1923, he was in Europe and stayed there for 16 years. That is how he met my grandmother in the early 1930s», Karim Benzakour, the grandson of Ahmed and Erna, told Yabiladi.
In Berlin, and most precisely during the beginning of the 1930s, their love story was born, at a time when Germany, controlled by the Nazis, targeted interracial couples, Jews, homosexuals and other minorities. In 1933, the Nazi party called for the prohibition of marriages between Germans and Jews. The idea was part of a process of Nazification known as Gleichschaltung. The latter resulted in imposing, in 1935, laws that officially forbade mixed marriages in Germany.
During the same period, Ahmed and Erna, who felt that their love was on the verge, took advantage of the circus to leave Germany for Geneva, Switzerland, and tied the knot in September 1934. To be with the man she loves, Erna gave up on her German citizenship and uttered her marriage vows.
The couple then traveled to Paris, France, where Erna «secured the protection of the French state as a North African citizen in 1935», Benzakour recalled.
One year later, the couple had their first child, and in the middle of an intense political situation in Europe they gave birth to their second child. By 1938, the couple decided to return to Morocco and settled down in Tangier, which had a special status.
«My mother was born in Tangier in 1939», said the grandson, adding that his grandmother completely lost her German citizenship in 1944. «I think she had to do this to get Moroccan citizenship because she became a citizen of Morocco and returned to Germany only between 1966 and 1967 to visit her dying mother». Unfortunately, Erna was not able to attend her father’s funeral in 1958.
That was not the end of hardships for the two lovers. In 1946, when Tangier was considered an international zone, the French accused families settled down in the city of working as spies for Germany.
Erna and Ahmed were affected by the situation and were expelled from Tangier to Tetouan, which was controlled by Spain at the time. «My uncle, who now lives in Boston, was only two-month old when that happened. It was a second blow for the family. A year later, families were finally allowed to return to Tangier, which my grandmother refused to do», Karim Benzakour said.
Until death do us part
The family, however, had a hard time living in Tetouan in the beginning. «Ahmed Hantout fought for four long years, faced with disastrous injustices. He was jobless with no one to help», Habiba Hantout Seidel wrote in an Eco de Tetuan article.
Ahmed did not lose hope and kept fighting. In the 1950s, he was appointed head of receptionists at Hotel Dersa by its owner Bulaix Baeza. It was also in the 1950s that Ahmed Hantout became the author of the first «Guide touristique de Tétouan» and founded the first «Tetouan Travel Agency», while the city was still under Spanish protectorate.
Working as a passionate acrobat in Europe and a travel enthusiast, Ahmed Hantout spoke nine languages in addition to Tamazight, although he was not Berber, his grandson said.
Ahmed was «attached to his wife (...) He was faithful and totally devoted to her until his death».
Indeed, death separated the couple in 1985, when Ahmed passed away in Tetouan. Erna died in 1997 but first made sure to tell the story of how she met Ahmed to their five children and grandchildren. The Berlin-native is now buried next to her husband, lover and one and only Ahmed Hantout.
