VIDEO: Where are these children today?

Letaba Herald came across this video entitled ‘Bo Alles’ made by Koeka Stander on Facebook.

Stander talked to the Herald and agreed on publishing here this emotionally riveting video that pays tribute to the Children of District Six of Cape Town.

On 11 February 1966, exactly 50 years ago, District 6 was declared a white area under the Group Areas Act of 1950, and by 1982, the life of this community was over.

More than 60 000 people were forcibly removed to barren outlying areas aptly known as the Cape Flats, and their houses in District Six were flattened by bulldozers.

Stander told the Herald: “We have Cas van Rensburg to thank for this incredible footage. ‘Bo Alles’ was made from portions of his 16mm footage. He had the foresight to capture these priceless images on 16mm film in the 70s, before D6 was razed (see brief summary at the end of the film).

There is an amazing story behind how this footage was lost, and then how it found its way back to him 30 years later. There is more footage than what appears in ‘Bo Alles’, which is about the children.

‘We want to find some of the children in this film to speak to them about their memories, as well as to tell the story of this special footage and its journey through time,’ Stander said.

In an amazing turn of events, one of the children featured in the video have already been identified as Sharkey Fortune. Fortune is now 56, said his sister, Rizaan Fortune.

The video:

‘Gone. Buried. Covered by the dust of defeat – Or so the conquerors believed.

But there is nothing that can be hidden from the mind.

Nothing that memory cannot reach or touch or call back.’

Don Mattera, 1987

Letaba Herald would like to thank Stander for the rights to publish this video and to help her in her quest to track down some of the other children appearing in  the video.

Can you help? Then please visit the Facebook page, Children of District 6 or email:koeka@postoasties.co.za

“What beautiful footage, so sensitively and so affectionately made. I had a strong connection with the area, as my grandfather’s shop, M.Beinkinstadt, was established in Canterbury Street at the turn of the 20th Century, and was sold by the family one hundred years later. My grandparents lived above the shop and their magic home was a second home to me. The district, with its unique and distinctive character, was a powerful force of my childhood, and it was heartbreaking to watch it disappear. I would love to know more about the background and experience of capturing this footage…” Laeh Padwich Jacobson. 
District Six was named the Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town in 1867.

Originally established as a mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, laborers and immigrants.

District Six was a vibrant centre with close links to the city and the port. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the process of removals and marginalization had begun.

The first to be forced out were black South Africans who were displaced from the District in 1901. As the more prosperous moved away to the suburbs, the area became a neglected ward of the city.

The District Six Museum, established in December 1994, works with the memories of the District Six experience and with that of forced removals more generally.