Sebastian Hirn’s exuberant theater installation “Unwritten archives” brings the genocide of the Herero in German South West Africa back into consciousness. With five descendants of those who were supposed to be destroyed at the time.
Again and again excerpts from Lothar von Trotha’s dreadful extermination order ran across the tape. It will also be read later. “I, the great general of the German soldiers, am sending this letter to the Herero people. The Hereros are no longer German subjects. They have murdered and stolen, cut off ears and noses and other body parts of wounded soldiers, and now they no longer want to fight out of cowardice . […] However, the Herero people have to leave the country. If the people don’t do this, I will force them to do so with the Groot pipe (cannon). Within the German border, every Herero with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot. I will no longer take in women and children, drive them back to their people, or have them shot at. Those are my words to the Herero people.” Von Trotha adds that shooting at women and children should be understood in such a way that you should shoot over their heads, then they would run away and the troops would be “of the good reputation of the German soldier”.