The genocide in Namibia between 1904 and 1908 is still regarded in Germany with scant interest. Kids don’t learn about it. The tragedy isn’t part of the national consciousness. German colonial soldiers massacred tens of thousands of Herrero and Nama people. Livestock and land were stolen. Many were forced to flee – but you’ll have more luck finding memorials to the German soldiers than to their victims. German tourists still visit Namibia in huge numbers but few know about the dark shared history between the countries.
Entrepreneur and filmmaker Theodora Shandé was born in Nigeria and grew up in Germany. Her family was not directly affected by the genocide and she didn’t learn about it in school. Nonetheless, in her new film Sorry for the Genocide, co-directed with Matteo Sant’Unione, Lisa Ossenbrink and Elmarie Kapunda, she gives a long overdue platform to descendants of those who died.
In the documentary, screening this week in Doxumentale in Berlin, her protagonists speak of their fight for their families’ suffering to be acknowledged. Five years ago, Germany and Namibia signed a joined declaration in remembrance of the colonial past. Germany agreed to pay €1.1bn in reparations over 30 years. It seemed like a promising first step. However, as one interviewee points out in the film, this really isn’t much: Germany has already paid close to €40bn to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion by Russia.
Meanwhile, development aid to Namibia only serves to “reproduce structural injustice,” as one observer puts it. For example, money is being pumped into infrastructure projects like new roads, but few Namibians own cars – and so the only ones who really benefit are the white settlers, for example German farmers.
“It’s definitely something that needs to be talked about,” Shandé observes of the unsatisfactory settlement between the two countries.
As part of an impact campaign for the documentary, she hopes to get the film seen in German schools. The filmmakers are also supporting the Swakupmund Genocide Museum and its founder, Ludlow Peringanda, as he fights for greater visibility for the museum.
At first, the idea was to make a 20-minute video. “But we decided that 20 minutes was definitely not enough to tell this whole story,” the director remembers. Their Namibian protagonists had so many stories to share about themselves and their ancestors that the decision was soon taken to make a fully-fledged feature.
“For us, it was very important that their voices were the main characters,” Shandé explains why the documentary has no narrator or voice-over.
Interviews happen in places of historical significance, for example beside the unmarked graves of the victims, or at Shark Island, now a tourist resort but that was once a concentration camp.
“It would be ridiculous and unimaginable to think that Auschwitz would be used as a camping facility,” one interviewee observes of the incongruity of such a sacred place being taken over by holiday makers.
For Shandé herself, it was “definitely shocking” to be filming in places where, 120 years ago, atrocities had taken place. “I was mad and sad at the same time that such things were happening…and what also makes me very sad is that most people in Germany don’t even know about what was happening back then.”
There is a stark contrast between the families of the victims, who are still weighed down by the extreme suffering their ancestors endured, and contemporary Germans, so many of whom remain blithely unaware that anything bad ever happened. “I feel I have to apologise that we don’t know about it,” Shandé says.
The documentary chronicles the grim history of the colonial period in Namibia but it also relates events of then to the present-day situation, and asks protagonists what they hope for from the future. What’s more, it has some shocking archival imagery of the genocide.
This was a challenging project to make. Numerous financiers turned it down and so the filmmakers eventually launched their Kickstarter campaign.
“When we got the information that we would not get the funding, for me it was like, ok, now I definitely have to do the film,” the director remembers. She has a stubborn streak. Being rejected only motivated her further. “If they [the financiers] say no, I definitely say yes!”
Shandé is a successful entrepreneur and business woman as well as a filmmaker. She is the founder of Wave In Motion GmbH, a media production company that employs 17 people. At the same time she was working on the project, she was also running her day to day business. “We do 3D animation, videography, photography and marketing for companies from the building sector, something completely different,” she explains.
Sorry for the Genocide is her first venture into feature documentary. “Let’s say it was not easy. We had night shifts and weekend work to make it all work because we needed to keep going with the normal business of Wave In Motion – we had to do both.” Wave In Motion oversaw the animation in the documentary itself.
Now the film is complete, Shandé is working hard to ensure that it is noticed. No-one is suggesting that a young generation of Germans have any culpability for the actions of their ancestors – but Shandé believes that they should at least be aware of the genocide.
“There are many reasons why this is necessary. One is that everyone in Germany should know Germany history, the good parts and the bad…It’s not that we want to point fingers or make people in Germany feel bad.”
Germany retains close links with Namibia and the director argues that Germans should not “be left in the dark about the shared history of the countries.” That’s why she is promoting the film so energetically. Film screenings and discussions are planned throughout Germany to “foster public understanding of colonial crimes and historical responsibility.”
There have already been early, informal test screenings in Namibia for the protagonists, one of which was attended by the German ambassador in the country. Sebastian Fischer, director of the African Film Festival in Cologne, is coordinating the German release. “He offered to do the distribution for us, with us.” The filmmakers are also in touch with broadcasters, museums and NGOs about potential educational screenings.
Having made one documentary, Shandé is keen to carry on. “I would like to make more documentaries. I didn’t study documentary, but I think maybe that is a good thing. I want to be open-minded and have as many perspectives as possible, so the viewer is able to make their own decisions,” she describes the expansive approach which she will continue to take in all her future work.
