Concentration Camp Memorials

Aliwal North

A vast Gedenktuin dating from 2000, it is filled with inner symbolic forms. These include empty coffins and serried rows of bodiless gravestones, while hidden within are the actual remains of the dead, contained in a coffin structure with a 1981 dedication stone. ‘The names of the dead’ are on plaques on semi-hidden walls within the structure. ‘The symbolism’ is sketched and loudly proclaimed on an explanatory granite stone. The Gedenktuin is beautifully tended, also on two visits inhabited by colonies of bees. There is a black camp cemetery some distance away with ‘restored’ walls, but it is now untended and sadly unkempt within.

View the Aliwal North Gedenktuin gallery here

View the Aliwal North Aliwal Black Cemetery gallery here

Barberton

A small Gedenktuin has replaced and overwritten most signs of the earlier Barberton cemetery, but aspects of which linger in memorial plaques and a small obelisk-shape that has recorded on it ‘the names of the dead’. The remains of the dead have been removed from what is now an area of grass. Where are they? Probably somewhere beneath the brick-work floor of the Gedenktuin.

View the Barberton gallery here

Balmoral

The cemetery is on land owned by a nationalist group, with spaces for contemporary burials just outside. There is also a ‘murder museum of genocide’ fulminating against all manner of things including black liberation struggles and white abortion. The cemetery itself features long rows of tidied up would-be ‘original’ graves made to look like this, instituted at some earlier date, complete with a quite early memorial that names the dead.

View the Balmoral gallery here

Belfast

Almost the original camp cemetery, with little nationalist attention having been given to this sad and beautiful place. There is much bare red earth as well as confining grave markers marking out where people were buried, or where they were restored as such.  There is a more recent dated memorial. In spring time, a profusion of wildflowers blooms on the local roads leading to the cemetery.

View the Belfast gallery here

Bethulie

A huge memorial site, a large sprawling Gedenktuin with a ceremonial entrance. It is dotted with numerous earlier memorials and fabricated ‘original’ gravestones and urns and was used for ceremonial commemorative gatherings. To one side is an annex, a kind of charnel house containing the bulldozered and now walled up remains of the dead.

View the Bethulie Gedenktuin gallery here

View the Bethulie SAHRA gallery here

Bloemfontein

The Bloemfontein Concentration camp was large and there were burials in different locations, added to later by the Vrouemonument, the women’s memorial unveiled in 1913. In the President Brand cemetery, camp graves are in one area, British military ones in another. In the Cemetery Road one, camp graves are in one area, ordinary ones in another. Both have large memorials naming the different dead, all remains of which are now confined beneath these to prevent disturbances by burrowing animals or extremes of climate. On a separate site, the Vrouemonument, once alone and soaring to the sky out of a flat plain, is now part of the War Museum of the Boer Republics, fenced, and in an enclosed site hemmed in commercial businesses.

View the Bloemfontein Monument Road gallery here

View the Bloemfontein President Brand gallery here

Visit the Vrouemonument gallery here

Brandfort

Beyond Brandfort town and on the farm Louvain, this Gedenktuin site is huge and once encompassed an Afrikaner holiday park. it is now multiply ‘restored’ to an idea of what such memorial sites ‘should’ be like. The names of the dead are on a massive granite memorial; fabricated gravestones abound; memorials from earlier periods more clearly witness nationalist sentiment. A ‘restored’ black cemetery is also to be found in one area of the site.

View the Brandfort gallery here

Harrismith

Harrismith has two memorial sites. One is a small and contained Gedunktuin area located within an ordinary and mixed cemetery. The Gedunktuin features a number of memorials. It dates from the 1980s, there is an earlier obelisk shape with the names of the dead, and placed on the floor of the Gedunktuin are slates with painted verses on them from the old South African nationalist anthem. The other is in Harrismith town and is similarly a mixed cemetery but also includes some military graves. It features nationalist memorials from 1938 around the Great Trek reenactment and 1940.

View Harrismith Gedenktuin gallery here

View Harrismith Town Memorials gallery here

Heidelberg

The Heidelberg memorial site is in a demarcated area of the town cemetery, and located on a hill with a panoramic vista. The original graves have been remade in serried ranks; gravestones are placed on them randomly and do not correspond to the camp cemetery plan. There is a large imposing cairn with inserted into its walls the remains of earlier memorials, dedication stones from 1927, 1977, and 1948, with etched onto the latter a picture of the Voortrekker monument in Pretoria. Symbolic steps lead up to one of the memorial strones, with the actual remains of the dead encased within. ‘The names of the dead’ that are such a feature in many of the memorial sites are not present here.

View Heidelberg gallery here

Howick

The original camp cemetery at Howick has been remade as a demarcated symbolic Gedenktuin. It is in what is now a rather desolate place, but closed off with a gate and perimeter fences. Enclosed within this there is an obelisk with the names of the dead, a leftover from an earlier commemorative time.

View Howick gallery here

Irene

This is an immense and immaculate Gedenktuin now behind locked gates with a high perimeter fence. It contains memorials from multiple periods and also those of a variety of nationalist occasions such as the 1938 Great Trek (aka Second Trek) reenactment, dedication of the Voortrekker monument in Pretoria, celebration of the 1948 National Party election victory, and others more recent. Its ceremonial use is apparent in its layout. Serried ranks of symbolic graves with numbers of names on each of them take the eye and dominate. There are enclosed inner areas with gravestones, and also symbolic forms that hold the actual remains of the dead. There is the massive presence of a monument featuring ‘the names of the dead’ from this camp.

View Irene gallery here

Jacobs & Isipingo, Voortrekker-Clairmont Road

A memorial obelisk with the names of the dead is all that remains of the camp cemetery. It stands in a now derelict area that doubles as a pedestrian thoroughfare, fenced off from a large adjacent cemetery.

View Jacobs & Isipingo gallery here

Kimberley

No sign of the original Kimberley camp cemetery now exists, replaced by a small high modernist Gedenktuin. This is replete with symbolic forms, together with spiralling peaks reaching skywards. There is an inner enclosure in which the remains of the dead, removed from their graves, have been placed.

View Kimberley gallery here

Klerksdorp

Part of the regular Klerksdorp cemetery, there is a set aside area of concentration camp gravestones, and on first sight these look like they might be original ones. On second sight, their even regularity and uniformity, along with randomly placed grave markers and name plaques, indicate otherwise, that these were ‘restored’ at some earlier point to look like a set of graves ought. Some of the name plaques are ‘original’, but this most likely means dating from the period after the War had ended. At the time few people had the resources to commission such things. Standing between this separate area and the rest of the cemetery is a tall memorial like a bell tower with a dedication stone, and to one side of it and dating from a later period are ‘the names of the dead’, etched onto granite and cemented inside a shelter with an overhanging top.

View Klerksdorp gallery here

Kroonstad

This is a vast Gedenktuin now in a desolate industrial area adjacent to a railway line, in summertime littered with rampant grasses and other vegetation. ‘The names of the dead’ area is the focal point, dominating the Gedenktuin because of their immense number. This was a camp whose population was decimated by epidemics. It has a formal covered entrance and perimeter fence; internal walls are likely to hold the actual remains of the dead; and bas relief images of nappies and babies’ booties are on their sides. Standing in front of ‘the names of the dead’ monument is a tall memorial, dedicated in 1936, which has etched onto it the draped shape of an earlier memorial. This palimpsest is one of the mothers’ memorials dedicated immediately post-1902, and which was later demolished to make way for this nationalist memorial.

View Kroonstad gallery here

Krugersdorp

There are some Gedenktuin features in this otherwise ordinary cemetery, such as brick walls marking an entrance, internal divisions with some walls likely to hold the actual remains of the dead, and formal memorials placed together and dedicated at various key dates for nationalism. The original graves have been remade and restored to have a formal regularity; no untidy stones preventing animals from digging but instead uniform surrounds and gravel fillings. Headstones given prominence bear names that are politically resonant, such as Kruger and Steyn, but which are of people not related to ‘the’ Krugers and Steyns. There are many smaller and larger memorials with a variety of dates, including 1926, 1938, 1958 and 1972.

View Krugersdorp gallery here

Mafeking

The Mafeking [now Mahikeng] camp occupied at least two adjacent areas. There is a large and imposing Gedentuin on the main road into the town which has on a number of occasions been ‘restored’ to look like a cemetery of its kind should. There is also a much smaller, peaceful and well-tended cemetery on Baralong land. The latest restoration of the Gedenktuin is dated on a dedicatory memorial as 2001, preceded by a 1987 memorial. ‘The names of the dead’ are set into a winding brick wall, complete with ‘original’ gravestones but which local dignitaries paid to have made as part of the 2001 restoration project. ‘Graves’ are given white markers placed with precision, mimicking a military cemetery. These are a later invention, with the actual remains of the dead encased within or beneath the brick walls. The cemetery on Baralong land is in considerable contrast domestic and peaceful, with flowers and trees. Its dedicated monuments and verses of poetry nonetheless stem from nationalist sentiment.

View Mafeking Gedenktuin gallery here

View Mefeking Baralong Cemetery gallery here

View Mafeking Soldiers in Town Cemetery gallery here

Merebank Isipingo St James

The Merebank and Isipingo memorial site is located at the side of a church in an enclosed and locked area. An arrangement to be given access fell through as the custodian did not arrive, so only an unsatisfactory tantalising glimpse, shown in this photograph, was possible. This camp was displaced from elsewhere [Pietersburg] and only existed for a short time.

View Merebank Isipingo St James gallery here

Middelburg

Middelburg was a large camp and there are three cemetery areas. The New Cemetery has within it memorials from different time-periods crowded near each other. A large grave area has been ‘restored’ to considerable uniformity and regularity. A ‘Memento Mori’ memorial is placed near a ‘Vergeet?’memorial. ‘Memento Mori’ summarises the number of those who died, but there are no names of the dead here. The Old Cemetery is large and imposing, with the concentration camp graves in a partly separate area which has a formal entrance, a gap in its brick wall marked by two burger war graves memorial stones. There is a rough-hewn memorial naming the dead. The Suburbs Cemetery has four long rows of graves ‘restored’ uniformly to look something like coffins. Here there are no names nor even counts of the dead, apart from occasional headstones.

View Middleburg Old Cemetery gallery here

View Middleburg New Cemetery gallery here

View Middleburg Suburbs Cemetery gallery here

Norvals Pont

This is a very formalised Gedenktuin. A formal covered gateway leads into it, while clearly demarcated perimeter walls enclose it and mark the boundaries. Bas reliefs of kappies and babies’ booties are set into the walls. The Gedenktuin area is completely covered over with stone and features faux-graves indicated by long lines of raised stones. Centre place and on a plinth is a memorial with ‘the names of the dead’, with the remains of the dead most likely encased within or beneath it. To one side there is a rough-hewn pyramid with a 1937 dedication and next to it there is a 1989 memorial pyramid, also in rough stone, added to with an inscription saying that the Gedenktuin was memorialised on 10 October 1999, a hundred years after the start of the war.

View Norvals Pont gallery here

Nylstroom

A very formalised covered entrance and perimeter wall at the front, ‘the names of the dead’ are placed into the brickwork on the other side of this wall, which also has a 1984 dedication stone set into it. Nearby there is another memorial which has a 1942 date. And earlier there was a 1917 memorial, which no longer exists except in photographs. Spreading out behind this formalised and tamed front-area, there is an untidy rough-hewn area of graves which look ‘original’, and are probably older than many such, but still have undergone ‘restoration’ work to make them look ‘proper’. Thus large stones have been cemented into the grave-tops, to stop animals from digging down or indeed digging up; and earlier metal number-plates have been replaced or added to by headstones which do not belong to the same graves, with many also featuring displays of plastic flowers.

View Nylstroom gallery here

Orange River Station: Doornbuilt

The Orange River Station concentration camp was located a few miles outside Hopetown, distant from Kimberley as much as Johannesburg, Pretoria and Bloemfontein, but not from military action because in a strategic position, with a British military camp close by. Originally adjacent to Doornbuilt farm and now part of it, much upkeep has gone into the concentration camp cemetery area. The ‘original’ graves have been rendered neat, proper and seemly. While they may appear as restored, photographs from the war period and just after show something very different: careful mounds of earth with neither head-stones nor numbers, then stones placed on these, then later surrounds are added. In the most recent work, the number-plates on graves are often not sequential and anyway differ from the kerkhoff plan of graves. There is an obelisk memorial which has no date, and from its style this dates possibly from the 1940s to the 60s. ‘The names of the dead’? Absent.

View Orange River Station Doornbuilt gallery here

Pietermartizburg

The graves of the concentration camp dead are located in the town’s Commercial Road cemetery. Other memorials present include those to the original Voortrekkers. The memorial to the camp women and children is an undated obelisk, but likely to date from the period soon after the end of the war. The graves areas are demarcated in blocks only, not as individual graves. Some headstones with names and dates have been incorporated, but these seem to have belonged to ‘ordinary’ townspeople who died. There is also a small War Graves Commission marker-device, placed near the memorial to achieve a Gedenktuin-like effect. Along one side near the perimeter is a long and deep wall which may hold the actual remains of the dead, while ‘the names of the dead’ have been etched on stone and placed on the top.

View Pietermaritzburg gallery here

Pietersburg

The Pietersburg [now named Polokwani] Gedenktuin has a formal red-brick front complete with a huge War Graves Commission emblem and a magnificent pair of gates. Unusually, the recently provided explanatory notices also feature in English, including stating that the original memorial was unveiled in 1903. The ‘restored’ graves are partly quite spread out, partly in orderly rows. This is a large cemetery behind the formal entrance, and within it there is a small Gedenktuin area with a brick structure, memorials, and ‘the names of the dead’. This also incorporates casts of ox-wagon wheel marks, signifying the Great Trek reenactment and the wagons which visited the cemetery. An earlier memorial in the shape of an obelisk has in front of it a figurative memorial of a seated child.

View Pietersburg gallery here

Port Elizabeth

What remains here is a small highly symbolic Gedenktuin, positioned at the edge of what used to be the old showgrounds. Port Elizabeth was a small camp, and remaining photographs show its cemetery was quite ordinary. By the 1960s, a symbolic high modernist memorial was placed at the edge. It was replaced by the present Gedenktuin. This takes the symbolic shape of a barbed wire surrounded circle, with a bricked floor. In the floor is a metalwork plaque dated 1983, saying the work had been carried out by Rapportyers, a nationalist organisation for young people akin to the Scouts. There is no representation of ‘the names of the dead’, perhaps because so few in number.

View Port Elizabeth gallery here

Potchefstroom

Situated at the side of a Dutch Reformed Church, this has been made into a Gedenktuin rather than an ordinary cemetery, but a low-key one. There is a formal entrance with gates and symbolic perimeter fencing. Long raised stone-covered enclosures, presumably holding the remains of the dead, are situated in an otherwise flat gravel expanse. A rough-hewn stone memorial provides a dedicatory text and has a 1918 date. ‘The names of the dead’, a very large number of them for this was a camp which suffered a number of epidemics, are etched onto granite slabs placed on the sides of an elevated shape on a plinth.

View Potchefstroom gallery here

Springfontein

Well out of the town and through a desolate area alongside railway sidings, this is a large memorial and cemetery site which the concentration camp dead share with British military and other dead. It has two entrances accordingly, both taking a Gedenktuin form. The brick entrance to the concentration camp part leads into a bricked enclosed pathway, and on the insides of the perimeter wall are ‘the names of the dead’. Beyond this formalised and ordinary entrance lies something different, less orderly, more unkempt, more human. Some graves have surrounds, some the remains of small humble name-stones pushed into the ground. There are dated memorials, a ‘central stone’ brick ziggurat from the 1920s, and an upright pillar commemorating the 1930s Great Trek reenactment.

Very different from this, much closer to the town there is a very sad small cemetery mixed with Gedenktuin characteristics. This was unconsecrated and where unbaptised babies who died were buried. The formal entrance is surrounded by layers of later official nationalist memorialisation; and beyond this is the cemetery, unruly with grasses and flowers in spring and summer.

View Springfontein Main gallery here

View Springfontein Babies gallery here

Standerton

Standerton cemetery has long neat rows of formalised ‘restored’ concentration camp graves each surmounted by a granite or slate slab, giving them the appearance of uniformity. They are in a separate area from the rest of the town graves. Within this and opposite the entrance and its path is a structure that looks like a bandstand but has sacred rather than secular purpose. Within its central area are ‘the names of the dead’. It is also possible that the remains of the dead are within or beneath it.

View Standerton gallery here

Turffontein

Perhaps the largest and symbolically most resonant Gedenktuin is that at Turfontein, near the then-small town of Irene. It is on a hillside and has a formal brick entrance and covered gateway. Its dedicatory plaque is dated 1962. Cemented into its walls are name stones seemingly from camp graves, but checking the camp registers shows few of which relate to people actually in the camp. Symbolic coffin shapes cascade down the hillside. Within these shapes are deep covered walls which hold the remains of the dead, as well as symbolic railway lines in the shape of crosses leading to these from the entrances into the coffin shapes. In one there is a 1941 memorial in rough-hewn stone which has a dedicatory plaque in a Germanic script, a reflection of nationalist political allegiances at this time. Set into its other sides are ‘the names of the dead’; and at the foot of one side are more of their names.

View Turffontein Gedenktuin gallery here

View Turffontein Names gallery here

Vereeniging

In Vereeniging town there is a peace monument concerning the signing of the Treaty in May 1902 that ended the South African War. The camp dead were buried in the town cemetery, in a separate area and with these graves now cleared away. The actual remains of the dead are now beneath the memorial which bears on its sides ‘the names of the dead’, which dates from approximately the 1960s. Some symbolic forms have been provided in their stead at different points in the cemetery, in the shape of stone coffins placed on plinths. There is also an earlier memorial, a rough-hewn stone pyramid shape from the 1930s.

View Vereeniging gallery here

Volksrust

There are two places concerned with concentration camp memorialisation in Volksrust. The cemetery associated with the concentration camp dead now takes the form of a Gedenktuin, with a covered formal brick entrance with grave name stones cemented into its walls. It has a 1970s dedicatory plaque. Beyond this are new graves only. The concentration camp dead have been relocated. In the centre of the town there is a fenced off enclosure with a camp Gedenktuin with a 1976 dedicatory plaque, and also 1930s commemoration of the Great Track re-enactment visit. The Gedenktuin mainly features ‘the names of the dead’ etched on stones within a massive memorial, with their actual remains relocated beneath this. There is also a 1990s memorial to black mineworkers who left the Johannesburg mines during the war.

View Volksrust Cemetery gallery here

View Volksrust Town gallery here

Vredfort Road – Koppies

South of Vredefort, the concentration camps cemetery site has a 1941 memorial to a Great Trek reenactment visit just outside. The entrance takes a Gedenktuin form, with a formal brick entrance and a huge War Graves Commission sign, dating from probably the 1990s. There are symbolic graves in long uniform rows, ‘restored’ and each marked with the same granite stone and formula of words. ‘The names of the dead’ are set into the sides of a modified obelisk shaped memorial dating from the 1960s.

View Vredfort Road Koppies gallery here

Vryburg

On the edge of the town, the concentration camp cemetery is a fenced off area in a large open space. The fencing is metal and it has a turnstile entrance. Its 1930s memorial bears the words ‘honour our dead’. The grave namestones cemented into its base are a mixture of ‘restored’ and original. The remains of the dead are located beneath the memorial, moved there to protect against the effects of climate and digging animals.

View Vryburg gallery here

Winburg Gedenktuin

The Winburg concentration camp cemetery is in a now desolate area. There is a brick gedenktuin style entrance with a massive War Graves Commission symbol. The entrance leads through a passage way to an area at the back of the entrance which holds ‘the names of the dead’. The whole of this Gedenktuin area is on a plinth on a small hill. Turning round from the enclosure and looking down, on one side there are camp graves and on the other some military ones. The seeming camp graves have been ‘restored’, each in a cement surround and with a name each head, although these do not correspond to the cemetery plan. The actual remains of the dead are beneath the plinth and close to the names, and so contained within the Gedenktuin.

View Winburg Gedenktuin gallery here

Camp Cemetery/Gedentuin Sketch Plans

Many of the camp cemetery and Gedenktuin sites are huge and it is difficult to perceive what they look like from an aerial view and that, at ground level, there is literally more to them than meets the eye. Because of this, during visits a number of sketch plans were made of the layouts of particularly striking examples. Belfast is small and simple and included as a point of comparison. Others like Turffontein and Bethulie are vast and portentously symbolic. They can be viewed here.

Aliwal North (view here)

Belfast (view here)

Bethulie (view here)

Kimberley (view here)

Norvals Pont (view here)

Nylstroom (view here)

President Brand Bloemfontein (view here)

Springfontein (view here)

Turffontein (view here)

Vredefort Road (view here)