Aftermaths: post/memory, commemoration and the concentration camps of the South African War 1899–1902

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Notes

[1] This paper was originally given as a plenary address at the international interdisciplinary conference on ‘War, Culture and Humanity’, University of Manchester, 15–17 April 2004. We are grateful to the organisers for this invitation to shape our ideas. The quotation comes from the conference flier.

[2] The research drawn on here concerns the aftermaths of various events connected with the South African or Boer War of 1899–1902, provoked by Britain against the Boer Republics as part of its imperialist expansionist project within Southern Africa. As a result of the ‘scorched earth’ phase of the war, the British military formed camps along the main rail routes where these people were ‘concentrated’ in camps of tents. Because of virulent epidemics of measles, pneumonia, typhoid and enteritis, and also sometimes tainted water supplies and problems in dealing with human sewage, in a short period of around four months mortality rates soared. Subsequently, 26 370 deaths of women and children in the ‘white’ camps were later commemorated by emergent Afrikaner nationalism. Our research is concerned with the uses of memory and testimony in nationalist political ideology, and the key analytical ideas it develops concern post/memory, moral landscape and the racial order, legendary topography, and stories in a narrative frame.

[3] ‘Hendrik’, aged 63, a businessman and former Broederbonder, interviewed by LS in Durban, 14 July 2001.

[4] De Reuck, ‘Social Suffering’, p. 73.

[5] Coetzer, Fire, iv, p. 148.

[6] See Brink, ‘Secular Icons’.

[7] SRC 18/7045, General Correspondence files.

[8] Concentration Camps Commission, Report, p. 9.

[9] Concentration Camps Commission, Report, p. 32.

[10] Neethling, Should We Forget?, p. ii.

[11] It was sent by the Deputy Administrator of the Orange River Colony, Sir Hamilton Gould Adams, via the Chief Superintendent of Refugee Camps, Captain Trollope.

[12] Thus after entering Volksrust, Mrs Neethling, author of Should We Forget?, then moved between six camps, distributing relief from the Dutch Ladies Relief Committee.

[13] See for instance the 1941 German film ‘Ohm Kruger’, directed by Hans Steinhoff, based on a novel by Arnold Kriegler, Mann Ohne Volk (‘Man of the People’), and described by Goebbels as ‘an anti-English film beyond one's wildest dreams’; see http://www.bfi.org.uk/collections/catalogues/boer/details.php?filmid=90 accessed 28 November 2002.

[14] See Hirsch, Family Frames, ‘Projected memory’ and ‘Surviving images’ and the discussion in Stanley, Mourning Becomes…, chapters 1 and 2.

[15] James E. Young's work comes the closest to questioning referentiality of Holocaust memory. See Young, Writing and Rewriting, The Texture and At Memory's Edge.

[16] Stanley, Mourning Becomes…, in press.

[17] DBC 73: Register of Deaths, Johannesburg Burgher Camp.

[18] The role of state historians working the records is returned to later.

[19] See Brink and Krige, ‘Remapping’, for political “troubles” erupting at Turffontein, with a memorial being blown up.

[20] Johanna Rousseau, War Without Glamour, p. 99. This was in Hobhouse's possession from late 1903 on, although, like the others she had collected, it was not published until 1927.

[21] SRC 92 and 93. Not all the records from Kroonstad camp have survived. A number of the camp registers were lost en route to Bloemfontein, where all the ORC camp records were archived after the war. Nevertheless, the composite death registers for all the ORC camps contain the lists of deaths for Kroonstad and there are other returns for this camp too.

[22] SRC 92: Register of Deaths Book II and SRC 93: Register of Deaths Book III.

[23] See Thompson, The Political Mythology, on South Africa and Smith, Stories, more generally.

[24] See Tonkin Narrating Our Pasts on oral historians and their ‘in the telling’ embellishments.

[25] Mrs Du Toit, Mag Ons Vergeet?, p. 88.

[26] Mrs Mollett, Stemme Uit Die Verlede, p. 45.

[27] Mrs Du Preez, Stemme Uit Die Verlede, p. 50.

[28] Mrs Alberts, Stemme Uit Die Verlede, p. 92.

[29] Mrs Botha, Stemme Uit Die Verlede, p. 119.

[30] Mrs Scheepers, Stemme Uit Die Verlede, p. 146.

[31] Mrs Wolvaardt, Stemme Uit Die Verlede, p. 29.

[32] Mrs Viljoen, War Without Glamour, p. 63.

[33] Mrs Truter, Mag Ons Vergeet?, p. 195.

[34] On the Pietersburg meat hook incident, see DBC 6: Papers received, Pietersburg camp, May—December 1901.

[35] Marx & Engels, The German Ideology and Smith, ‘Theorizing’.

[36] The context involved the women's national parties, nationalist publishers and local Broederbond members as teachers, journalists and other cultural entrepreneurs encouraging Afrikaans-language writing and publication and also putting on records statements about the war and the camps.

[37] See for example Stanley, ‘Women's South African’ and Dampier, ‘Reading “Race” and ‘Women's Testimonies’.

[38] It also ‘forgets’ the many men who were camp inhabitants; this is not discussed here for space reasons, but see Stanley Mourning Becomes…, Chapters 5, 6 and 7.

[39] See for instance Emslie, ‘Introduction’; Jansen, ‘Ek ook’; and Marais, Die Vrou.

[40] Mrs Wolvaardt, Stemme Uit Die Verlede, p. 28.

[41] Mrs Van Rensburg, Stemme Uit Die Verlede, p. 55.

[42] Concentration Camps Commission, Report, p. 50.

[43] Neethling 1902, Should We Forget?, p. 123.

[44] Raal, Met Die, p. 75.

[45] See Stanley, ‘Black labour’ and Chapter 7 of Mourning Becomes….

[46] See for instance Le Clus, Lief en Leed, which appeared eighteen years after the war; Raal, Met Die, published thirty-six years after the war; and Rabie-Van der Merwe, Onthou!, which emerged a full thirty-eight years after the conflict had ended.

[47] There are for example at least eight accounts of the ‘meat protest’ at Brandfort camp: Els, ‘By Maria Els’, ‘Opstand’; Grobbelaar, Dagboek; Le Clus, Lief en Leed; Le Roux, ‘Verklaring’; Lombard, ‘Liewe Renier’; Rabie-Van Der Merwe, Onthou! and Ras, ‘Vroue-Opstand’. The dead sow appears in accounts by Du Plessis, ‘Die Getuienis’; Grobler De Clercq, ‘Verklaring van’; and Raal, Met Die. The widespread repetition and indeed universalisation of these specific incidents in women's testimonies illustrates the mythologising of these events over time, as eventually the telling of these stories became standardised.

[48] ‘A set’ of De Wet gravestones is retained in Bethulie Gedenktuin, with the (erroneous) impression given that these are members of the family of the famous Boer general, Christiaan de Wet. Also all the retained gravestones in Kroonstad Gedenktuine are of men with Voortrekker family names, again implying (erroneously) they were heroic Voortrekkers who met their end there, oddly giving prominence to men, but the implication is that these would be (again, erroneously) very elderly.

[49] It is notable that, while the camp populations were politically very ‘mixed’ (often causing difficulties for camp administrators and police), contrary experiences and views to the nationalist one in women's testimonies simply do not exist.

[50] See Emslie, ‘Introduction’; Hanekom and Wessells, Valour and Marais, Die Vrou.

[51] See Dampier ‘Reading “race” and ‘Women's Testimonies’; also Stanley ‘Women's South African War’ and Mourning Becomes… Chapter 5.

[52] Grobler, ‘Haat, Vrees’, p.31.

[53] Krog, ‘Mothers of New Nations’, p. 4.

[54] See Mary Beth Tierney-Tello's Allegories of Transgression concerning telling stories ‘slant-wise’ for an exception. In addition, the contents of Boer women's testimonies contain strongly gendered, aged as well as raced dimensions—these overlay each other in complex ways; and while this cannot be discussed here, see Stanley, ‘Women's South African’ and Dampier, ‘Reading “Race”’.

[55] There are relatively small quantities of war and/or camp letters by Boer women. This stands in contrast, for instance, to the vast number of women's letters from the American Civil War, even taking the considerable discrepancy in population size into account.

[56] There are very few exceptions, including three NGK ministers and Mr Dahms, an uncle by marriage to Hendrina Rabie-van der Merwe, with something of a puzzle about why the latter's low-key testimony is included.

[57] Thus for instance, the distribution of Hobhouse's Tant' Alie was arranged through these circles, which also provided the origins of Postma's Stemme.

[58] There were many mixed race graves in most of the begraafsplase, because of the pressure on land for burial and coffins and shrouds at the heights of the epidemics.

[59] Thus many names were deliberately omitted. For instance many people with ‘English-sounding’ names whose deaths are recorded in Springfontein, SRC 91, are not recorded on the name stones at the Springfontein cemetery. The deaths of May and Jacob Habel and Wilhemina Farley are recorded in DBC 73: Register of Deaths, Johannesburg Burgher Camp.

[60] They were descendants of the ‘adventurer’ Koenrad Buys. See Mostert, Frontiers, pp. 237–39, 610–12 for background.

[61] DBC 55: Barberton Hospital Register.

[62] The latter, for instance, occurred at Springfontein where the camp Dutch Reformed Church minister, Dommissie, insisted on unbaptised babies being buried in a separate cemetery far from the main camp cemetery. See A91: Louw Collection, containing Springfontein Grave Register and also reminiscences of Revd Dommissie.

[63] See Stanley, Mourning Becomes…, Chapter 6.

[64] For instance, the four pages of Mrs Albertyn's testimony are almost entirely concerned with this, with only its last short sentence making a brief comment about entering Aliwal North camp and her feelings of relief because ‘My troubles were by no means at an end, but the worst was past.’ Mrs Albertyn, War Without Glamour, p. 44.

[65] They have all been traced through the relevant camp records, apart from a few where no record of them exists in the records of the camp(s) they write about.

[66] Walker, Women and ‘The women's suffrage’.

[67] See Stanley, ‘A ‘“secret history”’, and Stanley and Dampier, ‘Land acts’.

[68] A secret Masonic-like organisation of high nationalist men; see O'Meara, ‘The Afrikaner Broederbond’ and Furlong, Between Crown and Swastika.

[69] The date 16 December, variously referred to as Dingaan's Day, the Day of the Vow or the Day of the Covenant, marked the date on which a small group of Voortrekkers defeated several thousand Zulu at Blood River in 1838. Before the battle, the trekkers allegedly made a pact with God that they and their descendants would always honour and commemorate the date if they were granted victory—16 December became a highlight in the Afrikaner nationalist calendar.

[70] These include Voortrekker signs and symbols in or on the periphery of the Gedenktuine at Irene, Bethulie, Kroonstad, Norval's Pont, Pietersburg, Springfontein, Standerton and Volksrust.

[71] There are Rapportryer plaques at Heidelburg, Port Elizabeth and Volksrust, for example.

[72] See Witz, Apartheid's Festival for a detailed discussion.

[73] Halbwachs, ‘The legendary topography’, 175.

[74] The 1913 Land Act set up the framework for the dispossession of black people from the land in the twentieth century. Later legislation such as the Group Areas Act (1950), the Illegal Squatters Act (1951), the Bantu Self-Government Act (1959) and the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act (1970) consolidated this process.

[75] See Stanley, Mourning Becomes…, Chapter 8.

[76] See O'Meara, Volkskapitalisme.

[77] At Harrismith Begraafsplaas, for instance.

[78] For example, in Bloemfontein President Brand Cemetery.

[79] At Heidelburg, for example.

[80] A powerful example here is Volksrust, with six ‘white’ memorials together, and a much later one concerning black people completely separate from these. Both versions, ironically and unintentionally, reproduce the ‘together/apart’ nature of apartheid.

[81] A key example is Brandfort Nooitgedacht, where the whole Brandfort combined site on Louvain farm is being constructed as ‘proper graves’ and ‘proper cemeteries’ with a photographic museum attached, turning Brandfort back into a holiday/tourism resort, but this time for a much wider national and international visitor base.

[82] Thus a 1997 statue of Steve Biko was paid for by various Hollywood stars, the bridge in his home village renamed and his house opened as a national monument and his grave identified as a ‘struggle tourist’ site. Commemorating the statue, Nelson Mandela's comments make clear the valedictory purposes: ‘Today's occasion speaks of our resolve to preserve the memories of our heroes and heroines; to keep alive the flame of patriotism which burnt in the hearts and minds of the like of Steve Biko… We hope that by unveiling this statue, renaming the bridge and declaring his Ginsberg house a national monument we are making our own humble contribution to immortalising his life’ (http://www.sbf.org.za/foundation_index.php?article=12, accessed 12 April 2004).

[83] The cooption of the ‘freedom struggle’ in the service of ‘freedom tourism’ offers a strong pointer to one possible commemorative future, as contemplating plans for a commemorative park cohering around an immense revolving statue of Mandela on the harbour side at Port Elizabeth may suggest (http://www.freedomonline.co.za/statue_overview.htm, accessed 12 April 2004). This will be 65 metres high on a plinth of 45 metres, and at 110 metres in total dwarfing the 45-metre-high Statue of Liberty, and will form the epicentre of a larger set of ‘struggle sites’ for international ‘struggle tourists’ and all planned to underpin major economic redevelopment of the Eastern Cape.

[84] Sontag, Regarding, p. 85, emphases added.

[85] Neethling, Vergeten? facing 104.

[86] Both a core part of the iconic as discussed by Brink, and also core to the ideological as discussed by Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, and Smith, ‘Theorizing’.

[87] See Pretorius, Scorched Earth and the 2001 SABC documentary of the same year.

[88] This ‘puzzle’ is the topic of Stanley Mourning Becomes…, Chapter 6.