Heritage Cases

A local resident of Middleburg,Yolandi Koeleman-van Rooyen discovered a graveyard that may possibly contain the graves of black individuals near the children’s concentration camp graveyard in Kanonkop. She took it upon herself to try and find the names and history of individuals buried in the graveyard. She was able through the use of the internet to obtain an old tourism brochure of Middelburg on the website , www.geocashing.com . The brochure contained a historical route that indicated a black concentration camp on Sipres Avenue ,Kanonkop with a description, “D4” , of a concentration camp cemetery on a map . She brought this to the attention of , Corrine de Jonge a journalist of the “The Herald” newspaper. Corrine had read a book entitled “ Mpumalanga - an illustrated history” in the Middleburg Combined School Library. This book contained a list that comprised of the names, age, and causes of death of individuals that were in the Middelburg Black Concentration Camp during the South African War.1 It was later discovered, by the journalist, that the site of the graveyard in question was sold by the municipality for development on tender to John Clarijis . It was also discovered that he had already resold the piece of land to real estate agents even though he had only been paid the previous week. In 1996 ,the stand in which the grave are situated was subdivided into 8 different portions but a small with possible black graves had not been subdivided. The piece of land was cleared by Johan van der Berg, an Elieser complex developer of the Afrikaanse Protestantse Kerk . This resulted in the no visible indicators of graves on the piece of land. Johan van der Berg indicated that he had obtained permission from the Town Council to clear the site while he was building the Elieser complex . He recalled of accounts whereby he made then Town Council aware of signs of possible graves but he was reassured by the Town Council that there no graves in the area. The relevant authorities such as the Steve Tshwete Local Municipality , The South African Heritage and Resources Agency ( SAHRA) and Common Wealth War Graves were provided with the of the existences of graves. This would ensure that further investigations are made on the matter of the possible existence of graves. An Exxarro Arnot archaeologist, Johan Nel , was consulted when it seemed like the excavation of the graves was the only option. He stated that this option would be expensive so he recommended that Coen Nienaber from the University of Pretoria be contacted. He also stated that this would be a cost effective way as this would be done as part of a University research project.