Namibia - Return to a New Country

Streaming video - 1997

Starting in 1979, nearly 2,000 children were evacuated from Namibia (and refugee camps in neighboring Angola and Zambia) to protect them from the violence of the civil war between South Africa and the socialist liberation movement, SWAPO. In a gesture of solidarity with SWAPO, the GDR accepted almost 500 children for their “protection, education, and socialist training.” After unification in 1990, they were suddenly returned—after Namibia's independence and first all-race free elections, which took place the same week as the Berlin Wall opened.The young people interviewed in this film reflect on the experiences of their childhoods in East Germany, focusing especially on their sense of identity and the difficulties they faced fitt...ing into both European and Namibian societies. more