District 6 Museum

Back in Cape Town, the most poignant symbol of the apartheid regime is the District 6 museum. District 6 was a vibrant community of Cape Malays, Indians, Blacks, and a few Whites until 11th February 1966, when the apartheid regime declared District Six a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act. By 1982 60,000 people had been relocated to the Cape Flats Township around 15 miles away. Only the churches and mosques remained standing.

A pair of pictures of one street before and after the demolition of the area made me so sad as the destruction is absolute. There’s a tower of street names from the district which were given to the museum by the person whose job it was to collect the signs and throw them into the sea. District 6 was to be erased from the memory. A whites only bench leaves you in no doubt as to who is allowed to sit on it.  On the floor is a map of District 6. People have written the names of the families who lived at certain addresses and what businesses occupied which premises.