14 For people seeking short, but informative, overviews of the British Famine in Ireland, and its historiography, two of the most useful are: ‘Charles Trevelyan, John Mitchel and the Historiography of the Great Famine’ by Christophe Gillissen, published in Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique, 2014, and ‘The Irish Famine: A Historiographical Review’ by Lori Henderson, 2005.
‘What at one time one refuses to see never vanishes but returns again and again, in many forms.’ ‘Whenever a secret is kept it will make its way, like an object lighter than water and meant to float, to the surface.’ Both quotations are from A Chorus of Stones by Susan Griffin (the first from the end of Chapter One, ‘Denial’, the second from Chapter Three, ‘Exile’).
Chapter Ten: Moments of Seismic Shift – 7 December 1970, Warsaw; 2 June 2005, Belgrade; 14 August 2004, Okakarara; 14 July 2016, Berlin
1 ‘I could still apprehend the dying away of my native tongue …’ from Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald.
2 The official text of Wieczorek-Zeul’s statement, taken from the German Embassy’s website in Namibia, is copied below. Note: the title of this speech does not refer to ‘genocide’ but to ‘the 100th anniversary of the suppression of the Herero uprising’ (http://www.windhuk.diplo.de/Vertretung/windhuk/en/03__Topics/03__Politics/Commemorative__Years__2004__2005/speech-2004–08-14-bmz.html).
Speech by Federal Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul at the commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the suppression of the Herero uprising, Okakarara, on 14 August 2004:
It is an honour to have been invited to take part in your commemorations here today. I would like to thank you for giving me, as the German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development and as a representative of the German government and the German parliament, this opportunity to speak to you. Yet I am also here to listen to you.
Today, I want to acknowledge the violence inflicted by the German colonial powers on your ancestors, particularly the Herero and the Nama. I am painfully aware of the atrocities committed: in the late 19th century, the German colonial powers drove the people from their land. When the Herero, when your ancestors, resisted, General von Trotha’s troops embarked on a war of extermination against them and the Nama. In his infamous order General Trotha commanded that every Herero be shot – with no mercy shown even to women and children. After the battle of Waterberg in 1904, the survivors were forced into the Omaheke desert, where they were denied any access to water sources and were left to die of thirst and starvation. Following the uprisings, the surviving Herero, Nama and Damara were interned in camps and put to forced labour of such brutality that many did not survive.
We pay tribute to those brave women and men, particularly from the Herero and the Nama, who fought and suffered so that their children and their children’s children could live in freedom. I remember with great respect your ancestors who died fighting against their German oppressors. Even at that time, back in 1904, there were also Germans who opposed and spoke out against this war of oppression. One of them was August Bebel, the chairman of the same political party of which I am a member. In the German parliament, Bebel condemned the oppression of the Herero in the strongest terms and honoured their uprising as a just struggle for liberation. I am proud of that today.
A century ago, the oppressors – blinded by colonialist fervour – became agents of violence, discrimination, racism and annihilation in Germany’s name. The atrocities committed at that time would today be termed genocide – and nowadays a General von Trotha would be prosecuted and convicted.
We Germans accept our historical and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time. And so, in the words of the Lord’s Prayer that we share, I ask you to forgive us our trespasses…’
3 My Nazi Legacy, directed by David Evans, was released in 2015, and shown on BBC Four as part of its Storyville strand on 30 March 2016. It follows the human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, Niklas Frank and Horst von Wächter, as they travel to sites of Nazi atrocities in eastern Europe.
4 ‘Every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs’ is from a letter written by Henrik Ibsen to the German publisher and translator Ludwig Passarge, 16 June 1890, in response to questions Passarge had raised about Peer Gynt (which he had just translated into German).
Chapter Eleven: Power and the Hurricane
1 ‘for, in the hour of his death, he, like all men, cried out for his mother.’ I would be very grateful if any reader could help me trace this line – I’m sure it’s not a figment of my imagination, but I’ve been unable to trace it!
2 ‘Homeland’ was commissioned by the London International Festival of Theatre in 1993. The first phase took place over two weeks in June 1993, and involved taking a lorry-installation across London, to different sites connected to the countries which provided the raw materials for London’s electricity: not only the company headquarters involved in the production of energy – British Coal (coal), General Electric (light bulbs) and Rio Tinto Zinc (copper) – but also the communities of the countries of extraction. So we spent days in Golborne Road, outside Café Lisboa and Café Oporto, working with the Portuguese community in London, then moved to the Anglo-Hungarian Society and Hungarian churches at different sites, and we ended outside the London Welsh Centre in Grays Inn Road. The rear doors of the lorry opened to reveal a complex installation mapping the journey of the invisible ‘ghost of electricity’ into London, and we then worked with our passer-by audience, and asked people to trace their ‘animal territories’ of belonging onto giant maps of London, and draw intimate representations of their sense of belonging, which then were added to the installation. And people also recorded their conversations about their map and drawing, which could then be listened to by others. By the end of the project, there were nearly 300 jewel-like images of belonging fluttering on the walls inside the lorry. One woman said it was ‘like seeing people’s souls displayed’.
3 ‘Many of these people never had a chance to be …’ Dennis Potter’s words from his interview with Michael Parkinson for Desert Island Discs, first broadcast on 21 February 1988.
Chapter Twelve: The Architect on Trial
1 Speer’s interview comes in the BBC documentary Albert Speer: The Nazi Who Said Sorry, directed by Martin Davidson, first broadcast on BBC2, 2 May 1996.
2 Robert Jackson’s comments on Sauckel and Speer are from the transcripts of the Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, day 187 (Friday, 26 July 1946). These transcripts are also available online at the Yale Law School website – http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/02–27-46.asp.
3 Speer being ‘almost disappointed – he’d brought himself to expect this [the death penalty] in a “euphoria of guilt” …’ Sereny’s comment is also taken from the BBC documentary Albert Speer: The Nazi Who Said Sorry.
4 Samuel Rajzman’s testimony at Nuremberg is from the transcripts of the Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, day 69 (Wednesday, 27 February 1946).