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Shark Island (German: Haifischinsel) is a small peninsula adjacent to the coastal city of Lüderitz in Namibia. Its area is about 40 hectares (99 acres). Formerly an island, it became a peninsula from 1906 on by the creation of a wide land connection that doubled its former size.
Shark Island
Haifischinsel | |
|---|---|
 | |
  Shark Island | |
| Coordinates: 26°38′S 15°09′E / 26.633°S 15.150°E | |
| Country |  Namibia |
| Region | ǁKaras Region |
| Constituency | ǃNamiǂNûs Constituency |
| Establishment | 1904–05 |
| Founded by |  German Empire |
It had been formerly named Star Island by British Captain Alexander during his 1795 surveying expedition.[1]
Concentration camp
editThe island was site of Shark Island death camp. It was Namibia's first large-scale death camp. Close to 1,800 Nama prisoners arrived in September 1906, including Cornelius Frederiks, one of the strongest Nama military leaders.[1]
Shark Island has been called the "blueprint" for what the Nazis would later perpetrate in the Holocaust during World War II. Long before Hitler or the Nazis, the Germans shipped the Nama people to a remote location, where they performed experiments on the Nama and worked them to death.[2]
References
edit- ^ a b Cassidy, Joseph (2009). Place Names of Namibia A Historical Dictionary. Windhoek: Macmillan Education Namibia Publishers (Pty) Ltd. p. 102. ISBN 978-99916-0-654-5.
- ^ Steinhauser, Gabriele (28 July 2017). "Germany Confronts the Forgotten Story of Its Other Genocide". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
External links
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