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Where Are We? Remembering Colonialism

Where am I? One way to answer this question is that I’m sitting in a room in Ihnestraße 22, Berlin, Germany. Another way, I’m sitting in a classroom in the building that houses the Political Science department at the Freie Universität Berlin. But I feel this information is not enough to inform you of the real meaning behind my first question. The inspiration for the first query may shed some light: I’ve just been told by my professor that from 1927 to 1944, a collection of human remains encompassing some 5,000 items were housed in the attic of this very building. So when I ask, “Where am I?” it is not simply a matter of physical location, but one of history and more importantly, the interconnectedness of one building’s life with colonialism and with it the first genocide of the 20th century, perpetrated thousands of miles away in what today is known as Namibia, and another, perpetrated in Germany and across Europe thirty years later.

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Front entrance of Ihnestraße 22. Copyright Lili Mundle.

Constructed in 1927, the building was home to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, otherwise known as the KWI-A. Research conducted at this institute is infamous for legitimating racism both scientifically and politically. As a small plaque outside the front entrance informs us – Ihnestraße 22 housed Mengele’s mentor and other researchers who both scientifically legitimated the Holocaust and benefited from its atrocities. Its final line warns that scientists are responsible for the content and consequences of their research.

While this history is remembered, albeit on a small and difficult to read plaque, there is another history that has not been remembered. Let us return to the human remains in the attic, in particular 30 that had been stored there. Where were they from? At the time they had been shipped to Berlin, their colony of origin was known as German South-West Africa (DSWA). Today it is known as Namibia. From 1904 to 1908 a genocide, which to this day has not been recognized by the German government, was perpetrated against the Nama and Herero peoples. Both were nearly obliterated. One practice, documented on a postcard of the time, describes women in concentration camps – Germany’s first use of these – being forced to scrape flesh from the skulls of the murdered. The picture accompanying the text shows German soldiers packing skulls into boxes to be sent to Berlin for research. While these 30 skulls cannot for certain be traced specifically to the genocide, we know their origins were made possible by the context of colonial violence.

But it is not simply the presence of these skulls that connects Ihnestraße 22 and the research at the KWI-A to colonialism. As the plaque warns: scientists are responsible for the content and consequences of their research. However, Dr. Eugen Fischer, first director the KWI-A, most likely saw the consequences of his work being fortuitous rather than gruesome. For the reason he had been called upon to lead the institute was due to his own research in German South-West Africa in 1908. There he had studied the “Rehobother Bastards,” children of Dutch settlers and local Khoikhoi women, to determine the heredity of “race.” While in retrospect his proof was unsubstantiated, his work would inspire, among others, Dr. Wolfgang Abel, another researcher at the KWI-A. Abel’s research on the “Rhineland bastards,” children born of German women and French colonial soldiers from WWI, would lead to the forced sterilizations of 385 youth. The consequences of these men’s research are not limited to what has been written here. These descriptions are simply to give a first impression of the close relationship between colonialism, science and racism.

What does this have to do with activism? Sitting in that classroom in Ihnestraße 22, in what today is a university, and hearing my professor speak of our intimate proximity to colonialism inspired me and four other classmates – friends – to embark on a journey to remember and reveal this interconnectedness. Our method: an exhibit. Titled, “Manufacturing Race: Contemporary Memories of a Building’s Colonial Past,” this exhibit was displayed on numerous occasions in various locations, receiving positive feedback and publicity. Its contents address not only history, but the way in which this history is, or is not, remembered. Not wanting to have this knowledge lost after we graduated, we successfully applied for funding from the university to make our work permanent. Elements include an online version of the exhibit, a large memorial plaque in front of Ihnestraße 22 documenting the continuity between colonialism and KWI-A’s racist research, and finally an international conference on colonialism, science and racism in a broader context to be held in the fall of 2015.

In closing, I would like to offer the opening lines of the exhibit: “This exhibit was born from the knowledge that every site in Germany has a colonial past and the conviction that this knowledge needs to be made public. Not only did we want to know about the colonial past of Ihnestraße 22 – we want everyone to know. We hope that this research will bring others, here at the Freie Universität and beyond, to engage with the colonial reality that exists in all spaces. While we hope the knowledge we have exhibited will reach beyond the university, we specifically chose to host the exhibition at the very site where this knowledge was produced and where we are still studying today. In doing so we want to remind everyone that the so-called distant international and colonial are in fact local. We also want to remind that they are relevant to us all here, today. In doing so, we want to bring the question of ethics and research to the fore.”

As this text reveals, the hopes in creating such an exhibit are not just that history be revealed and remembered. That a website, or a plaque, or a conference be funded. But more fundamentally that we locate ourselves in the world by constantly asking: “Where are we?”

 

Lili’s intereMUNDLE.Lili SGIst in global issues and inter-cultural experiences is an inherently selfish one: having parents from two different countries and growing up in both countries herself, the aforementioned issues constitute an essential part of successfully navigating day-to-day life. Over the years these day-to-day issues have become a part of her academic interests and work, leading her to pursue a graduate degree in International Relations and work in the international arena. Underlying these academic and work activities remains her primary impulse: to continue exploring and communicating with the world around her.

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