IN-PERSON: Prague – Section A

Abstract

The paper shares the process of memorialisation of the historic Hardekraaltjie cemetery on the grounds of Stellenbosch University. The first mention of an Afrikaans-medium medical school in the then Cape Province of South Africa, was in the university’s 1916 statute. In 1946, the university set the wheels in motion for the establishment of the medical faculty. In 1956 the first group of students were admitted while the Tygerberg Hospital and the Stellenbosch University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences was being built on the area surrounding Hardekraaltjie (a historic cemetery established in 1910 and officially closed for burial purposed in 1947). The Faculty and the Hospital, at its current site, opened in 1976. In 2014, the then dean of the faculty was alerted to the existence of the cemetery by an employee of Stellenbosch University whose descendants were buried in Hardekraaltjie cemetery. It marked the collision of two seemingly removed worlds – a university faculty that was largely ignorant to the existence of the cemetery, and the neighbouring Ravensmead (Tiervlei) where descendants of those buried at Hardekraaltjie cemetery reminisced. In 2019, the University established a Steering committee which includes the Ravensmead community. This process seeks to unpack the history of Hardekraaltjie cemetery in relation to the University and is guided by Western Cape Heritage Council. This paper will explore the idea of placemaking, restitution, memorialization in the context of an ongoing, deeply engaging process jointly led by representatives of Stellenbosch University, the Tygerberg Hospital and the affected community.