The Apartheid Museum is not to be missed - you need at least three hours to get round and take in all the information. The museum is experiential - as you walk around you ‘live’ the experiences: walk through cages, past cells, around one of the riot tanks they used in Soweto.
The information is presented on panels, on TV screens transmitting key speeches and reports of events under apartheid, there are audio recordings, memory boxes, videos and audio tapes. There is an attempt to trace the origins of racism and apartheid back to the first settlers, but it is the lived history of apartheid and the bloodshed of the first years of liberation which leave the deepest impression and remind us that the torture techniques and tools of repression used in South Africa under apartheid are still being used today.
I left with many questions and a heavy heart, but full of admiration for those who resisted and their descendants who are trying to rebuild a country where the commonality of human experience is more important than difference.
Send your feedback or queries to been.there@guardian.co.uk
Search Been there