THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

An empire without colonies launched a drive to settle an empty, uninhabited territory—not that it was without humans, but “humans” at the time meant white people,especially German. The Herero, the largest African tribe in the region, were noobstacle in the Germans’ view. But the “non-human” natives rebelled ferociouslyagainst the German occupation and the result was expulsions, settlements,confiscations, abuse, and humiliation. They did not heed General Lothar von Trotha’sclear message, “Get lost or die,” but defended their homeland. The cost was sixtyfivethousand Herero dead. All German methods were implemented: bullets, massgraves, water poisoning, expulsion to the desert, death by hunger and thirst. Thistragedy happened just a short time ago, at the dawn of the twentieth century.German colonialism’s high degree of evil efficiency bested other colonialists,including the settlers of North America just twenty years earlier. The colonial processis inseparable from comprehending the Shoah. The Final Solution was launchedsomewhere in the new world, decades before Auschwitz. Extermination took place inthe New World of North America, and four decades before the Holocaust in Europe,Germany perfected the model in Africa. Namibia was the introduction to the Shoah;the Herero were Africa’s “Jews.” Although “only” sixty-five thousand (some estimateeighty thousand) Herero were murdered in Namibia, a fraction of all victims ofcolonial Europe, their annihilation was the first genocide to be carried out by anexplicit official order. Lieutenant-General von Trotha signed the order, with the fullbacking of the political system and the press of the German Empire. Von Trothaarrived in Namibia after the rebellion had erupted in order to crush it, and laterbecame Namibia’s governor. As a good, organized German general, he left his hotbloodedenthusiasm at home. Everything was done in cold blood, with detailedplanning and murderous efficiency. His predecessor, Major Theodor Leutwein,opposed the annihilation of the Herero for economic reasons, because “it is not easyto kill sixty or seventy thousand people.” Von Trotha had no such worries orcompunctions. He had brought with him the proper imperial spirit. “I will wipe outrebellious tribes with rivers of blood and rivers of money. Only following thiscleansing can something new emerge,” he wrote in his diary, reported in the Germanpress in 2004, on the hundredth anniversary of the Herero Holocaust. This spirit wasdelegated to his subordinates and reported up to his superiors in Berlin: to destroy,slay and exterminate, per Haman’s words in the Book of Esther.The Reichstag debated the issue several times. Their view was totally different than