PLACE TO FACE HARD HISTORY

A glimpse into the world’s shameful past, with lessons for the future

I get goose-bumps as Tali Nates, founder and director of Johannesburg’s Holocaust & Genocide Centre, talks: “My father was a teenager on Schindler’s list. I am here today because of the choice made by a German, a member of the Nazi party.”

In the early-morning sunshine, in a trendy Sandton café, it seems impossible that a government sought to eradicate Nates, her family and her people from this earth.

The project behind the centre was begun in 2008, to prompt awareness of such realities. Nates explains that the founders dreamt of a centre in the heart of Johannesburg “with a mission about education, memory and lessons for humanity”.

She says it’s because of SA’S own background that it needs this centre. “It is hard for a country to look at its own painful, deadly history, especially when it is recent. Talking about other people’s past liberates you to speak about your own. There are so many parallels between Nazi Germany and the apartheid state.”

Ten years after inception, the project has become a living, breathing space. Nates explains how it came to be situated on busy Jan Smuts Avenue. “Two very stylish and eccentric sisters, the Bernbergs, left their couture collection and their home to the city on condition that their house became a cultural site. The agreement was that the city would give us the land, and we would raise funds for the building.”

The house was derelict. “It couldn’t be saved, so an award-winning building was constructed. The architecture, by Lewis Levin, is rich with symbolism. Its facade is 10 m high, with railway lines embedded in concrete and stone, symbolising a colonial past and suffering through the ages, from historic to modern-day slavery.”

The architecture reflects the founders’ vision of an international museum in an African context. “We wanted to talk about genocide, SA and Africa.