‘They are disturbing the dead’: reconstructing the site of the forgotten first genocide of the 20th century

What happened

According to The Guardian’s source item, ‘They are disturbing the dead’: reconstructing the site of the forgotten first genocide of the 20th century, At least 3,000 Herero and Nama people died in a German concentration camp at Shark Island, Namibia. A new forensic exhibition in Berlin is using digital technology to unearth how colonisers scarred a landscape, and a community Visiting the Namibian port town of Lüderitz in late 2024, I came across a small museum run by descendants of German settlers. Alongside imperial German flags and memorabilia, it displayed artefacts of the Herero tribe that had been recovered from nearby Shark Island. What went unmentioned is that, from 1905 to 1907, Shark Island was the site of a concentration camp where Herero and Nama prisoners were subjected to forced labour, starvation and systematic abuse. At least 3,000 people are estimated to have died there. Shark Island was used as a tourist campsite when I visited. Monuments on the island honoured Adolf Lüderitz and Heinrich Vogelsang, the German merchant

Context

The development sits in VINI’s Culture file for readers following arts, entertainment, fashion, film, music, celebrity, and the business of culture. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-06-05T09:03:45+00:00.

What to watch

Open questions include whether primary sources issue follow-up statements, whether local or market impacts become clearer, and whether additional reporting changes the timeline or adds material context.

Source

Primary source: ‘They are disturbing the dead’: reconstructing the site of the forgotten first genocide of the 20th century via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.