Waves of fog spread through the theater hall. As if they were swaying to a dirge that a choir of four would sing. “Welcome to the crime scene,” says Keith Vries. He speaks even before he takes the stage at the National Theater in Windhoek. In German. Vries is learning the language to better understand what drove the colonizers to kill half his people. His poetry is meant to speak of a past that is not dead. Yes, not even completely gone yet.

“You shouldn't be afraid, dear. But I, my people, should.” Vries is now on stage, wearing a white turban and a floor-length white robe like his ancestors. It makes him look even thinner than he already is. He asks the audience: ” Who has the privilege of forgetting and who bears the burden of remembering?”

It's a summer Friday night in the capital of Namibia, where the Germans committed the first genocide of the 20th century. The National Theater is a third full. Those who are not here will be celebrating in the city's bars and clubs before the big summer break, and everyone will be heading back to their home area. The Herero and Nama genocide is not only an unpopular topic in Germany. But unlike the country of the perpetrators, the genocide was not forgotten here. But largely suppressed. Only now, four or even five generations later, does the trauma resurface. Many Namibians still feel the effects of German tyranny. Now, for the first time, they are trying to find a language for the indescribable.