The Apartheid Museum is located on the west side of Gold Reef City at only five kilometers south of the Johannesburg city centre. It is the first of its kind and illustrates the rise and fall of apartheid. The museum opened its doors in 2001 to take people back to the days of Apartheid - so that it should never happen again. It uses films, videos with live accounts of the Struggle, which enables one to feel the intensity of the situation back then and the path for freedom of the South African people, right up to the first democratic elections.
The Apartheid Museum is an emotional experience even for non-south Africans. After a short while inside you will feel that you were in the townships in the 70s and 80s, dodging police bullets or teargas canisters, this extraordinary museum has already become one of the city's leading tourist attraction, an obligatory stop for visitors and residents alike. The Museum leads you through room after room in a zigzag of shapes, some with tall roofs, others dark and gloomy, some looking through to other images behind bars or cages that make it clear that apartheid was not only immoral, but evil. Large blown-up photographs, metal cages and numerous displays recording continuous replays of apartheid scenes are everywhere.
And just when you feel you can't tolerate the bombardment of your senses any longer, you will reach a quiet space, with a glass case which contains a book of the new Constitution of South Africa, and pebbles on the floor. You will be able to express your solidarity with the victims of apartheid by placing your own pebble on a pile, and take a book. You'll then walk out into a grassland with paths which take you to a small lake and a small coffee shop and curio shop; you may want to slow down for a coffee and enjoy this quite time to reflect about the whole experience.
The apartheid Museum is a place of sorrow as well as hope and you most probably leave with a feeling of upliftment; it is a beacon of hope showing how South Africa is coming to terms with its oppressive past and working towards a future that all South Africans can call their own.
For anyone wanting to understand and experience what apartheid South Africa was really like, a visit to the Apartheid Museum is fundamental.
TIMES: Tuesday to Sunday 10h00-17h00; Closed on Mondays, Good Friday and Christmas Day.
All entrance fees are included in the tour price as well as some light beverage refreshments.
"To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others"
Nelson Mandela.
http://www.apartheidmuseum.org/
