The film will commemorate the genocide, which the Germans do not talk about

March 23, 2023 at 9:29 am I

BERLIN, BRATISLAVA. Although he graduated in history, Lars Kraume learned about the first genocide of the 20th century only later, in the early 1990s. That’s when he visited for the first time Namibiaonly shortly after it gained independence from of the Republic of South Africa.

It was there that he learned about the colonial past of Germany, which before the First World War belonged to then German South-West Africa. He was particularly shocked by the thousands of skulls of people who were murdered by the Germans during colonial rule and then transported to German museums, where they are part of exhibitions to this day.

“I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that we even had these skulls. Like exhibits in ethnological museums,” the Guardian quotes him as saying. “I ask myself – why did someone collect these skulls in the first place and why can’t we return them?”

Related article

Related article Our black people. That was the name of the children from Namibia who came to Považská Bystrica Read on

Denial of the past

Even then, he thought that he could make a film about the genocide that the Germans carried out between 1904 and 1908. The target was two tribes in present-day Namibia – they killed about 80 percent of the members of the Herero tribe, and half of the Nama tribe. In total, there were between 34,000 and 100,000 victims.

The consequences of this genocide are still visible today, as the tribes are still marginalized groups. Together they make up only sixteen percent of the population.

“For 120 years, Germany denied its colonial past,” Kraume said. “Most people don’t even know that Germany had a colonial past, let alone its brutality. They don’t even teach about it in schools.”