“Hardekraaltjie cemetery is our only link to the lost memory of this area.”
These were the words of Khoisan leader Melvin Arendse, who grew up in an area formerly known as Tiervlei (now Ravensmead) when he spoke at Stellenbosch University’s (SU) Hardekraaltjie cemetery restitution event on Human Rights Day.
Former Tiervlei residents including the Arendse, Olivier, Basson, Bastian, Afrika, Fortuin and Dietrich families, shared memories of their formative years, with Hardekraaltjie cemetery, which is partially situated on SU’s Tygerberg campus, at the heart of them.
SU’s Human Rights Day event discussions were hosted by Dr Leslie van Rooi, senior director of transformation and social impact, Dr Therese Fish, vice-dean of SU’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Professor Aslam Fataar from SU’s Department of Education Policy Studies.
Fataar is also linked to SU’s transformation portfolio.
“This initiative, which aptly takes place on Human Rights Day, is aimed at restitution,” Van Rooi said.
“We are committed to a restitution process for Hardekraaltjie which is underscored by research and community participation to remind us of a past when the dignity of the people in this area was tragically violated.”
Fataar said SU would engage with community members for at least two years to ensure a “deep human-centred community participation process” that would lead to the appropriate commemoration of those laid to rest at the site.
He explained that archival and community-based research was an important part of the restitution process.
“We aim to develop a culturally defined story about the grief, trauma, and dislocation caused by the cemetery’s violation.
“The community participative process will decide on the manner in which the cemetery site will be developed as a meaningful community space for memorialisation, education and ongoing conversation,” Fataar said.
Monday’s community participation process was prefaced with a research presentation by Dr Handri Walters, lecturer in SU’s Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology.
“We cannot talk about Hardekraaltjie cemetery without talking about apartheid and the Group Areas Act of 1950.
“According to official records, the Hardekraaltjie cemetery was in use from 1910 until its closure in 1947,” she said.
Old maps show that Hardekraaltjie cemetery is on the former geographical border between people of colour and white people.
Walters’ research highlighted the systemic effects of apartheid that had manifested in the work of several institutions, which led to the end of the cemetery’s documented existence.
“Cemeteries act as an institution of a person’s life.
“In many cases, it is the only record of when you were born and when you departed. I remember the donkey carts carrying the coffins of our loved ones and the ritual of visiting the graves of those who came before us, my grandparents included.
“Hardekraaltjie was our place of sanctity and it is important that we acknowledge it as such, for us and the generations after us,” Ravensmead resident Daniël Dietrich said.
Anna Afrika Valentyn remembered coffins on a wagon and walking carefully to ensure they didn’t cross colour lines.
“My grandparents, Anna and Petrus Afrika, are buried here.”
Arendse said Hardekraaltjie was the epicentre of coloured people’s history in the northern suburbs.
“In this cemetery lies human remains that is more than 150 years old. The entire Tygerberg area was one of the last spaces of conflict. The people buried here are linked to more than 230 coloured families across the Western Cape,” he said.
According to Fataar, the Hardekraaltjie restitution process will include the creation of a digital archive, so that the story of the “lost” memory of the area in question could be further memorialised for a younger audience.
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