Other South African Memorials


Commemoration is a public matter in which remembrance of the dead is made visible in a landscape or cityscape, and is particularly associated with governance and the state. It is about remembrance in a political as well as public context, rather than remembering personal grief and loss, although the two often become intertwined. In the South African context, commemoration of the concentration camp dead quickly became intertwined with commemoration of the war dead, then soon after that it was associated with the rise of nationalism. Concentration camp cemeteries, sad and touching places, were often overwritten by placing nationalist memorials in them. In many places, the surrounding area is also marked by many public acts of material remembrance made within a nationalist frame: resonant years include 1910 and Union, and 1936 to 1938 and the Great Trek re-enactment (AKA Second Trek). The Great Trek re-enactment in particular was intended to mark the landscape and show possession, and there are memorials at many places that the ox wagons crossing the country visited or passed through. There are also memorials to those people seen as heroes in ‘the history’ as viewed by nationalism. Photograph galleries of a range of such memorials together with short descriptions of them will be found here.

For further information, see the ‘Read about’ guides.

Steve Biko Grave & Memorial


The Biko memorials stand as counter to the white nationalist marking of the memorial landscape of South Africa.

Bantu Steve Biko, progenitor of the Black Consciousness Movement, was murdered by security police in 1977. There is a statue of Biko in East London; this is larger than life-size, paid for by donations from grandees from elsewhere in the world, and dedicated by Nelson Mandela in 1997. In nearby Ginsberg, Biko’s home town, there is a large and imposing brick entrance to the Biko part of the local graveyard, which takes a Garden of Remembrance form. The other graves are ordinary ones, mainly covered over with metal rails to protect against animals digging. Unlike many memorials to black activists, the Biko site is well visited as part of a heritage trail, and associated with the Steve Biko Centre built by the Steve Biko Foundation.

View the Steve Biko Grave & Memorial gallery here

Boesmansrivier


The memorial is near the beach in this small village on the coast of the Eastern Cape. It is a Second Trek memorial made from rough-hewn stones and dedicated in 1938. It is likely that one of the ox-wagons travelling the country reached Boesmansrivier, but unlike many such memorials elsewhere there is no sign of the wagon wheels having been run through cement to create a permanent record.

View Boesmansrivier gallery here

Brandfort Town


A number of memorials are clustered outside the Dutch Reformed Church in the centre of Brandfort. A conventional-looking angel bears a dedication to freedom and right, and is in remembrance of the women and children who died in the local concentration camp and dated 1906. There are also two memorials associated with the Second Trek visit of an ox-wagon cart in 1938. One is a cement cast of the wagon wheels and hoofprints; the other is a rough-hewn stone memorial of an unusual shape and covered with railings to look like wagon-sails, which is set within a cast of the wagon wheels.

View the Brandfort Town gallery here

Graaff-Reinet Memorials


Graaff-Reinet Is a very busy place in memorial terms, with memorials  to Union, Second Trek, President Pretorius. The memorial to the Union of South Africa in 1910 stands on a now rather desolate hill outside the town, where a large group of dagga-smoking boys politely made way so that photographs could be taken of it. In another area and just off a route out of the town, there is a rough-hewn stone pillar and an equally rough-hewn stone plaque which commemorates the 1938 Second Trek visit of an ox-wagon cart. On another road out and under a hill, there is a large imposing memorial to the locally-born Commandant-General of the Transvaal, Andries Pretorius, in a memorial area made by the local Rapportryers in 1941. His son Martinus became first president of the Transvaal. There is also a Gideon Scheepers memorial, which will be found on a separate page under his name.

View Graaff-Reinet Union Memorial gallery here

View Graaff-Reinet Second Trek (1938 Cairn) gallery here

View Graaff-Reinet Pretorious gallery here

Oudefontein, nr Bethulie


Oudenfontein lies on a road near Bethulie, a meeting-point. At a crossroads and set back from the road there is a paved area leading to three memorials, all associated with the Second Trek. One is a rough-hewn stone pyramid with multiple plaques including from 1965, with the white stones at its foot commemorating two Cape Rebels during the South African War who accidentally drowned. The other is a squared mausoleum-type memorial commemorating the 1938 box-wagon visit which was dedicated in 1939. Close by is a cement cast of ox-wagon wheels and ox hooves.

View Oudefontein gallery here

Oudtshoorn


The Second Trek Memorial in Oudshoorn is multiply dated 1938 with the namestones of people who contributed to its cost. It is located in a fenced off and locked area at the side of the Dutch Reformed Church. One of its plaques has a line from the poet Langenhoven, who wrote the old South African anthem ‘Die Stem’, about unity; it is hopefully dated 1938 – 2038.

View Oudtshoorn gallery here

Paarl Taal Monument


The vast and extraordinary taal or language monument in Paarl is set on a hillside and towers over the surrounding landscape, including looming down on Cape Town in the far distance. Its peaks and towers soar, and there are resounding hidden inner areas. Everything here has symbolic shape and form, and this is painstakingly explained in a pedestrian fashion on written information boards. Set into one of the pathways are the words ‘Dit is ons erns’ [literally ‘this is our seriousness’, but meaning this is the sign of our presence or possession]. The monument was opened in 1975. Close by is an amphitheatre that can hold around 4000 people.

View Paarl Taal Monument gallery here

Rhodes Memorial


The statue of Cecil John Rhodes on the University of Cape Town campus no longer sits looking over the landscape. Rhodes has fallen, removed during the student riots. Above the campus and in separate area is the Rhodes Memorial designed by Herbert Baker with statuary by Watts and verses by Kipling. Will it survive? It too looks down on the surrounding landscape. It has become a favoured local and international tourist place because of the views, and wedding parties often take place there.

View Rhodes Memorial CT gallery here

Sand River


Just off a main road near Ventersburg, this meeting place at Sand River in the Free State was where the treaty or convention was signed in 1852 in which Britain accorded independence to the South African Republic aka Transvaal. The rough-hewn stone memorial was erected by the Historical Monuments Commission, with an undated plaque to this effect. The convention was signed among others by the then Commandant-General Andries Pretorius, whose son Martinus subsequently became the Transvaal’s first President.

View Sand River gallery here

Schanskop, Pretoria


On a hillside just outside central Pretoria is an area which features a number of large memorial sites, including the Voortrekker monument and more recently the area known as Freedom Park with its museum. Schanskop includes a mixture of nationalist memorials. The main monuments are to people who were ‘bitter-enders’ and would not accept the peace treaty at the end of the South African War and left for German East Africa at a number of points but mainly in 1904. One was originally dedicated in the 1930s but restored in 2004 into its present brick form. There are also individual plaques commemorating individuals named as trekkers. In addition, there is a 1968-dated large boulder with a dressed face commemorating a nearby romanticised statute of much mythologised Boer scout Gideon Scheepers. The rest of the site has a few remaining British military buildings.

View Schanskop, Pretoria gallery here

Gideon Scheepers


Gideon Scheepers was commandant of the group of Boer Scouts and renowned for his ‘daring do’ bravery during the South African. He was also tried and convicted for murdering a number of black people as supposed spies. Tied to a chair, he was executed and buried at a place not recorded to prevent this is becoming a martyrdom shrine. A memorial was later placed in the likely vicinity, and is still often adorned with plastic or fresh flowers.

View the Gideon Scheepers gallery here

Smithfield Voortrekker Monument


Smithfield is a small town in the Free State, just off the N6 and around 130 km south of Bloemfontein. Hertzog was its MP for many years and it was the place in 1963 from which Verwoerd declared South Africa as a Republic. It has a 1938 monument made of rough-hewn stone in its centre commemorating the ox-wagon visit made as part of the Second Trek activities, when people in historical costumes accompanied ox wagons travelled to Pretoria and the Voortrekker monument from different parts of the country.

View Smithfield Voortrekker Monument gallery here

Danie Theron monument, nr Potchefstroom


The Danie Theron monument is near Potchefstroom. Theron was a Boer scout in the South African War who pioneered the use of bicycles for conveying information quickly. He became a thorn in the side for the British military and eventually was killed in 1900 in artillery fire. His activities and daring were later much mythologised. The initial monument was on the main road between Johannesburg and Potchefstroom near where Theron died and was unveiled by Botha and Smuts in 1907. A revamped memorial at the same location was provided by the Voortrekkers organisation and dedicated in 1950. It is on a hill and soars upwards, replete with nationalist symbolism. He was engaged to Hannie Neethling, a niece of Elizabeth Neethling.

View the Danie Theron gallery here

Utrecht Neethling


Utrecht was the home of Elizabeth Neethling nee Murray, a key figure in the writing and publishing of nationalist women’s testimonies concerning their experiences during the South African War. She is such an important figure in the process of commemoration and memorialisation that, although there is no specific memorial to her, her influence needs to be recognised and recorded. Her activities, books and impact are discussed in various of the publications accessed on the ‘Read About’ page. By birth she was a daughter of the well-known Murray family in Graaff-Reinet, which was split between those of high nationalist views and those who were pro-British. Her presence is also still tangible in Utrecht, where her home, later a school run by her daughter, has now become a museum. The galleries here show photographs from the Graaff-Reinet Murray home, and her Utrecht home after marriage to to an important Dutch Reformed Church figure.

View Utrecht Neethling gallery here

View Neethling/Murrat Graaff-Reinet gallery here

Voortrekker Monument, Pretoria


Likely to be the most famous of South African memorials and a magnet for national as well as international tourists, who seem largely oblivious of its nationalist history and continuing political and racist connotations as the symbol of nationalist triumphalism. It is located high on a hillside just outside central Pretoria and in the same vicinity as Schanskop and now the area known as Freedom Park. Its foundation stone was laid in 1938 by an 1838 Voortrekker descendant at the culmination of the Second Trek activities. It was inaugurated by DF Malan in 1949 around the National Party election victory; reputedly, around 250,000 people were present. It valorises the Boer settler presence in South Africa and their triumphs over adversities and is replete with heavy-handed symbolism. These include a shaft of sunlight which strikes on an empty tomb (symbolically representing a Voortrekker leader, Piet Retief) at the base of the monument at a particular moment on 16 December each year (the anniversary of the Battle of Blood River), and a flame which since 1938 has never been allowed to go out. The empty tomb has etched onto it some words from the ‘Die Stem’ nationalist anthem by Langenhooven.

View Voortrekker Monument gallery here

Vryburg Town


The Vryburg Second Trek memorial site Is on the main road to Taung, leading out of the town. It has some of the features of a Gedenktuin, such as a metal fenced perimeter and a semi-formal entrance with brick pillars holding the gates, with these enclosing a separated space demarcated from the outside secular world. There are two large monuments, both with protective ironwork. One is in the shape of an ox-wagon with railings mimicking wagon-sails. A plaque inside commemorates Manie Maritz, executed following a failed Boer Rebellion against the Botha and Smuts-led post-Union government in 1914/15. The other commemorates the 1938 Second Trek. It has metal railings, included within these are ox-wagon wheel shapes, and inside there are depictions of ox-wagon carts. Set into the stonework are names and 1938 dates of people who contributed to the funds to build the monument.

View Vryburg town gallery here

Winburg Voortrekker


The Winburg Voortrekker monument site is large and the monument itself is huge. It is situated on a former farm which was the birthplace of ex-President Steyn of the Free State, and it was the meeting place of the 1938 Second Trek ox-wagon carts that travelled the country and headed towards Pretoria and the Voortrekker Monument. There are a number of dedicatory plaques with dates including 1938, 1988, 1993. The style of the monument is reminiscent of the Paarl Taal monument and there is the same heavy-handed written explanation of ‘the symbolism’. Intended to push home the message, it leaves nothing to the onlooker’s imagination.

View Winburg Voortrekker gallery here