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The remains of Genocide found in U.S museum

September 14, 2017

Prisoners from the Herero and Nama tribes during the 1904-1908 war against German Imperial Force The Remains of Namibian victims of German G...

Prisoners from the Herero and Nama tribes during the 1904-1908 war against German Imperial Force

The Remains of Namibian victims of German Genocide during 1904-1908 Discovered at the American Museum of Natural History and other Collections.

13 September 13, 2017,New York: The Association of the Ovaherero Genocide In the USA in conjunction with the Ovaherero Paramount Chief Adv. Vekuii Rukoro and Chief David Frederick, Chairman of the Nama Traditional Authorities Association, confirmed today that the American Museum of Natural History ("AMNH") is in possession of Namibian human remains, some of which appear to be related to the German genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples during the period from German occupation of what was then South West Africa (now Namibia) from approximately 1885 to 1915.

The remains of victims of concentration camps in Namibia which were gathered by a German racial scientist for illusional experiments have been found in the collection of a major US museum and possibly some could still remaining in the closets of private collections that are scattered around the globe. The representatives of the Herero and Namaqua peoples of Namibia say skulls and skeletons dating to the German occupation in Namibia some decades before the first world war are being held by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Barnabas Veraa Katuuo of the Association of The Ovaherero Genocide said two of the eight human remains in the museum identified as from Namibia were probably those of people who died in concentration camps during the mercilessness purge conducted by German authorities to crush a rebellion organized by the Hereros and Namas between 1904 and 1908. The remains found in the AMNH were originally sold by Professor Felix von Luschan, a German anthropologist who also believed in eugenism. However, the said museum declined to comment about such discovery.  The racial experiments in Germany on specimens taken from African colonies seen by international historians as an encouragement towards the Jews' Holocaust that occured in Europe,specifically in Germany during the second world war. It's a hypocrise when large part of world history about Jews genocide is known by everyone. But, African episode had been largely ignored in German polical landescape as well in the world history, but there are now moves under way to atone for Africans especially (Herero-Namas) massacres with reparations. Namibian people are adamant with their self determination asking a reparations about the merciless genocide done against defenceless community.


The German Imperial Force under Lt-General Lothar von Trotha with aim to exterminate entire peoples has led to the killings being described as the “20th century’s first genocide” Historians have described how the regime at Shark Island in Namibia put up death camps to collect and preserve large numbers of skulls which they later dispatched to Germany to be used in pseudo-scientific experiments to support racist theories regarding the inferiority of the African races and the superiority of the German Aryan races. It is believed these remains reached the US when the museum bought the private collection of a German anthropologist in the 1920s. “The discovery of remains at the museum is a highly significant event at this crucial moment where Ovaherero-Namas' Committee has launched the lawsuit against the Germans, in that it shows that the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples in Namibia in the early part of the 20th century involved not only the mass killing of men, women and children, and the confiscation of their lands and livestock, but also the desecration of their remains which literally hundreds of skulls and skeletons that shipped to Berlin by German scientists and researchers,” Katuuo said. German evil researches it started at the late 18century when Berlin annexed a new colony on the south-west coast off Africa in the 1880s as part of the broader “scramble for Africa” among western imperialist powers. The Herero people (Ovaherero) were the majority people who subjected to racially motivated violence, rape and murder. Herero put up a resistance in January 1904 and smaller numbers of Nama tribe joined the uprising the following year, which resulted more than 100 Germans killed.


The insight revelation about German brutality and mass concentration camps across Namibia.


Shark Island (Haifischinsel) was concentration camp or "Death Island"which located at coast off Lüderitz, this sinister's place was among other five concentration camps in Namibian. Despite this massive facts and evidence everywhere about German genocide in Namibia. Some German officials selectively still use other word to describe atrocity other than “genocide” downplaying the killings of the Herero and Namaqua. At least some members of Bundestag like Social Democrat foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, issued a “political guideline” indicating that the massacre should be referred to as “a war crime and a genocide”.

A class action lawsuit filed by representatives of the Herero and Nama peoples in New York demands that their representatives be included in negotiations between the government of Namibia and Berlin over reparations, because, all along Berlin has repeatedly refused to pay direct reparations, saying that its development aid worth hundreds of millions of euros since Namibia’s independence from South Africa in 1990 was “for the benefit of all Namibians”


Namibian Skulls of Hereros and Namas-Genocide at Heroe' Acre after arrived from Germany.



About 55 human skulls and other remains have identified from a private museum in Germany and also be returned to Namibia. The repatriation demand still continues. The skulls believed were taken to Berlin some years between 1909 and 1914 which have been removed from their bodies and preserved in formaldehyde intact with faces,skin and hair. The scientists like Eugen Fischer who was a director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology has responsible for importation of human specimen from Africa for scientific experiment.

 The suit alleges that from 1885 to 1903, about a quarter of Herero and Nama lands, thousands of square miles was taken without compensation by German settlers with the explicit consent of German colonial authorities. The law suit also claims that those authorities turned a blind eye to rapes of Herero and Nama women and girls by settlers, and the use of forced labor. In addition to land and property grabs, there were concentration camps, exterminations and scientific experiments on “specimens” of what the settlers considered to be an inferior race, and this conclude a serious genocides of the 20th century that ever committed against humankind. Berlin has been tight-lipped about details of the deal being negotiated with Namibia. The plaintiffs in the US case consists of Vekuii Rukoro, the Paramount Chief of the Herero people, David Frederick, chief and chairman of the Nama Traditional Authorities Association and others. They filed the case in January under the Alien Tort Statute, which allows non-US citizens to make claims before US federal court for international law violations. The two tribes claim that their exclusions from the Namibia-Germany negotiations violates a United Nations declaration on indigenous people. Judge Laura Taylor Swain is hearing the case, but Berlin had yet to name a lawyer for its case. This casting uncertainty over the matter that Germany could delay the process.

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