"De Overval": Aanslag op Suid-Afrikaanse Biblioteek in Amsterdam

The South African Institute (SAI) on Keizersgracht 141, Amsterdam, was seen as the most important library on the subject of South Africa in Europe. It had a comprehensive collection of Africana, dating back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. On January 19, 1984, more than 50 young people, wearing black stockings over their heads, forced their way into the building. They wreaked havoc. Bookshelves were pulled over and books and documents, and the building façade were splashed with “paint and oil bombs”. Hundreds of books were hurled into the adjacent canal. A radical group of anti-apar... Mehr ...