Returning Germany’s stolen skulls

归还德国被盗颅骨

The Documentary Podcast

2025-07-17

26 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

In 1900, German colonial officers executed 19 Tanzanian leaders, including Akida Kiwelu, and shipped their skulls to Berlin for scientific study. Thousands of such skulls and ancestral remains stolen from Germany’s past colonies are still kept in Berlin museums to this day. In an administrative building in Berlin, Zablon Kiwelu encounters his grandfather’s skull for the first time. DNA testing confirmed a genetic match to this skull, held in an anthropological colonial-era collection of thousands of skulls known as the S-Collection. But despite proof of his heritage, Zablon cannot bring his grandfather home for a proper burial.
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

  • When I was a young boy, my father told me that the skull of your grandfather is in German.

  • That's what my father knew about this thing.

  • That voice you just heard belongs to Zablon Kieweru, who I met on his recent visit to Berlin.

  • He'd come to the capital of Germany for a unique purpose,

  • to visit the skull of his grandfather, Akira Kieweru.

  • Tuesday is the day which I cannot forget in my life, going to see the remains of my grandfather.

  • Sunday, Sunday I was happy.

  • Monday I was happy.

  • But Tuesday, it's really pain.

  • I'm not happy.

  • It's really pain.

  • Before I saw this car, I wasn't afraid.

  • But now, it's really pain.

  • Zablon lives in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania.

  • He's an old man, but for his entire life he's known the story of the execution.

  • How more than 100 years ago, the German colonialists publicly killed 19 local leaders.

  • They were hanged, one after the other from a tree.

  • On the same day, 19 people were killed the same day.

  • My father was very young, so he didn't know much about his father.