See also Encounter Magazine's guide on
South Africa Museums.
The Apartheid Museum, the first of its kind, illustrates the rise and fall of apartheid.
Starting in 1948, the white elected National Party government implemented the policy of apartheid which turned 20 million people into second
class citizens, damning them to a life of servitude, humiliation and abuse.
Their liberation in 1994 with the election of Nelson Mandela, the prisoner who became president, is a climax in the saga of a nation's resistance,
courage and fortitude.
The museum is a superb example of design, space and landscape offering the international community a unique South African experience.
The exhibits have been assembled and organised by a multi-disciplinary team of curators, film-makers, historians and designers. It include
provocative film footage, photographs, text panels and artefacts illustrating the events and human stories that are part of the epic saga, known
as apartheid.
A series of 22 individual exhibition areas takes the visitor through a dramatic emotional journey that tells a story of a state-sanctioned system
based on racial discrimination and the struggle of the majority to overthrow this tyranny.
As visitors, carrying their entry card which identifies them as either "white" or "non-white", move through the rooms they are assailed by the sights and sounds of the apartheid era - the violence, the suffering, the anger. They follow the path of the country through decades of oppression to the birth of democracy.
For anyone wanting to understand and experience what apartheid South Africa was really like, a visit to the Apartheid Museum is fundamental.
How to get there:
The Apartheid Museum is open on Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm.
The Museum is on the corner of Gold Reef and Northern Parkway Roads. Take the Booysens offramp on the M1 south, and follow the signs to the Museum.
Guided tours can be arranged by phoning (011) 496 1822.
