254pp., paperback, Cape Town, 2021
A South African couple find letters and a diary that belonged to their German ancestor, Helmut Schumann who, as a medical student, worked as an orderly for the German Medical Corps in Lüderitz Bay from 1905 to 1907. In the letters he documents the inhumane conditions in which he had to work, what the Herero and Nama prisoners endured, and his romantic adventures.