One of the smallest museums in Africa might be its most important
A curator’s battle to commemorate Germany’s forgotten genocide in Namibia
There are plenty of reminders of the colonial past in Swakopmund, a town on Namibia’s coast, if you know where to look. Mechanics work beneath battered Mercedes; doughy cooks prepare doughy strudel; a guesthouse is named after a Bavarian prince. In the centre of town the privately run Swakopmund Museum is a mix of taxidermy and Germany. Near a stuffed seal is a cabinet of pilsner glasses used by those who left the Second Reich for German South-West Africa, as Namibia was known between 1884 to 1915. The museum’s curator concedes that it “does not tell the whole story” and cites a lack of funds.
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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “House of horrors”
From the March 23rd 2024 edition
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