28 May is not the date the concentration camps were ordered closed

The Namibian newspaper of 16 May 2024 reported that: “In 2016... Usutuaije Maamberua tabled in parliament the motion for a Genocide Remembrance Day... as it was on this day... that the commander of the colonial German Schutztruppe ordered the formal closure of all the Ovaherero and Nama concentration camps in the then German South West Africa.”I refute, on the strength of my history knowledge and research, that there was such a date (28) and month (May) in any of those five years (1904–1908) the alleged commander "ordered the formal closure" of the Ovaherero and Nama concentration camps.I have taken the trouble to check through my history books and papers on the genocide at issue for the five May months of each year and have found no mention like that.Beginning with the year 1904, there is nothing in May to substantiate the order of the alleged formal closure. What actually happened is: “In May 1904 ... Von Trotha was appointed to replace Leutwein as commander of the German forces... in German South West Africa.” (Samuel Maharero, p. 243, G. Pool)His “official appointment was dated 16 May 1904” (Ibid. p. 245).On 9 December 1904 (not May), and after pressure from the German parliament, the German Kaiser finally tells Von Trotha to rescind his extermination order against the Ovaherero people and further commands him to gather up the remaining Ovaherero and take them to concentration camps as prisoners of war. That, to me, implies that the concentration camps by then had to be created (or opened, not closed) to keep the prisoners of war inside. That concludes the events for the year 1904.The May months of the years 1905–1906 passed, and no order to close camps was given. On “31 March 1907, the war is declared over. Under the pressure from a German population which was unhappy with the war... the German parliament votes to call an end to the war” – but not to release the prisoners of the war. As a result of this vote, “the Governor, Friedrich von Lindequist, declares the war against the Herero and the Nama over.”On “1 April 1908, a year after the war was officially declared over, the Herero and Nama prisoner-of-war status is revoked, and the last camps are closed. The war has come to an end.”Remember Although the war was declared over on 31 March 1907, only a year later, on 1 April 1908, the "last concentration camps are closed" (and not in May). Remembering our genocide on this incorrect date would give a false proxy for the freedom of the Ovaherero and Nama victims of this war, for the freedom they never got.In my opinion, what was ‘closed’, however, were not the camps, as such, but perhaps only the new intake of prisoners of war or the opening up of new camps. The prisoners were not released to go back to their former homesteads as free people but remained locked up. Even if they were allowed to go, they would have no places to return to, as these would have been destroyed by the war, and their livestock, after five years of no owners, would have become like wild animals, scattered all over or killed by lions, hyenas, cheetahs, or confiscated by German settlers and other European &#039;colonial agents&#039;.But why should there be a remembrance of the Ovaherero and Nama genocide date, based on a wrong date of 28 May, on which no declaration of their extermination was issued, nor even the so-called formal closure of their concentration camps ordered?Review The closure of concentration camps, by itself, is not an act of genocide, as compared to the actual dates on which the Ovaherero and Nama extermination orders were, by intent and implementation, issued, namely: 2 October 1904 for the Ovaherero and 22 April 1905 for the Nama people. Both cases are historically and factually correct and more appropriate dates to be remembered, recognised and gazetted and must, above all, be premised on the historicity of the authentic victims, as per those extermination orders.I would, therefore, propose that the dates 2 October and 22 April of each year be recognised, gazetted and remembered as the Ovaherero and Nama genocide remembrance dates.Incidentally, since the massacre of the &#039;Witbooi People&#039; at Hornkranz (12 April 1893) and the extermination order (22 April 1905) for all the Nama people both coincide in the month of April, my choice for April goes without saying, because the month was for all the Nama people in any case.All there is to be done is simply for the president to de-recognise and de-gazette the wrong date of 28 May, instead of perpetuating annually, ad infinitum, a wrong date. This is an issue between true and/or false or right and/or wrong. By the way, the month of May is already overladen with so many holidays it does not need more. Finally, it is mind-boggling and flabbergasting that our government is wasting the taxpayers&#039; money by using, of all people, Vice-President Lucia Witbooi, herself a clan member of the highly respected and iconic Hendrik Witbooi Royal House, accompanied by the former speaker of the Namibian parliament (himself a Herero), some regional governors, some traditional leaders and a coterie of others for the town hall meetings and roadshows to carnivalise and seek the support from crowds in the streets and regions of Namibia.The call by the vice-president that we must forget reparation, apologise and forgive each other is like pouring bile (Onango, in the Otjiherero language) onto a cup of ice cream.

28 May is not the date the concentration camps were ordered closed

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-06

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28 May is not the date the concentration camps were ordered closed

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-06

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