District Six Museum Oral History Project

26/09/2025

In this episode, Lars Espeter of Academy of the Digital Arts discusses the development of the District Six Experience: A Walk Through Time VR app, which features former residents and storytellers Nomvuyo Ngcelwane and the late Noor Ebrahim. Join us as we unpack the interface between heritage and technology and the importance of telling African stories through locally developed video games.



Guest: Lars Espeter

Director, DoP and Editing: Dean Jates

Interviewer(s) and Research: Ayanda Mpono, Matthew Nissen

Photo credit: Fakier Jessa Collection, District Six Museum

Filmed in the Avalon Auditorium of the District Six Homecoming Centre.

https://youtu.be/joOfjxSZPm8

All podcasts and vodcasts can be found on YouTube & iono.fm.

In this episode, Lars Espeter of Academy of the Digital Arts discusses the development of the District Six Experience: A Walk Through Time VR app, which feat...

24/09/2025

What has Table Mountain witnessed, but never told?

In this podcast, we delve into the Museum’s sound archive. We uncover interviews conducted by staff member Linda Fortune, who set out to capture the memories of weekends and holidays spent exploring Table Mountain. Childhood memories flow into reflections of loss and longing after forced removals.

Join us in celebrating 30 years of a community archive as we continue to rebuild, remember and reclaim the stories of our past.

Guests: Vincent Kolbe, Stan Abrahams, Patrick O’Connell, Fuad Sawyer, Joe Schaffers & Colleen Knipe-Solomon.
Story, narration, editing & sound design: Lisa Hendricks
Sound editing: Dean Jates

Photo credit: Fakier Jessa Collection, District Six Museum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGMGtcLmAr8

All podcasts and vodcasts can be found on YouTube & iono.fm.

What has Table Mountain witnessed, but never told? In this podcast, we delve into the Museum’s sound archive. We uncover interviews conducted by staff membe...

23/09/2025

In this episode, Sharon Paulsen and Tina Smith discuss the donation of Johaar Mosaval’s personal archive to the District Six Museum. As a self-archivist Mosaval prepared and ordered his own collection which spans more than 90 years of his life and documents his contribution to the world of ballet. He exemplifies the agency we can have in telling our story. Join us as we explore how we work with the archive, and we introduce the new book by Diana Ferrus, The Boy Who Loved to Dance, which celebrates Mosaval’s story.

Guests: Sharon Paulsen, Tina Smith
Director, DoP and Editing: Dean Jates
Interviewer(s) and Research: Ayanda Mpono, Matthew Nissen
Music jingle: Zolani Mfihlo

Photo credit: Fakier Jessa Collection, District Six Museum

Filmed in the Avalon Auditorium of the District Six Homecoming Centre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y0DzEi3MHU

All podcasts and vodcasts can be found on YouTube & iono.fm.

In this episode, Sharon Paulsen and Tina Smith discuss the donation of Johaar Mosaval’s personal archive to the District Six Museum. As a self-archivist Mosa...

22/09/2025

On 27 April 2025, the Central Methodist Mission, alongside the District Six Museum, hosted a special Freedom Day service to retrace their history in the Buitenkant Street Methodist Church.

Drawing on interviews and recordings of the day, this podcast traces the journey of the Buitenkant Street congregation as they made the shift to Metropolitan Methodist Church in 1988, transforming sacred spaces into sites of resistance and remembrance.

Join us in celebrating 30 years of a community archive as we remember what was lost but also honour the faith and quiet courage that held the congregation together during this time.

Guests: Jane Lawrence, Pat Lawrence, Brian Heuwel, Margaret Rundle, Bishop Peter Storey & Rev. David Newby.
Story, narration, editing & sound design: Lisa Hendricks
Sound editing: Dean Jates
Photo credit: Fakier Jessa Collection, District Six Museum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLEq4-SrfXM

All podcasts and vodcasts can be found on YouTube & iono.fm.

On 27 April 2025, the Central Methodist Mission, alongside the District Six Museum, hosted a special Freedom Day service to retrace their history in the Buit...

22/11/2024

David Bam said it perfectly, they lived in the “broken palaces” of District Six. When everyone was packing up their belongings, loading them onto trucks and arriving at locations alien to them, the Bam family stayed behind, defying The Group. As demolitions were taking place, they moved from one “broken palace” to the next, witnesses to the destruction of their beloved District Six.

In this podcast, we listen to David and Mabel Bam as they remember the last days of District Six.

Guests: Mabel Bam & David Bam (siblings)
Featuring: Ayanda Mpono
Story, narration, editing & sound design: Lisa Hendricks
Photo credit: Fakier Jessa Collection, District Six Museum

All podcasts and digital stories can be found on YouTube & iono.fm.

Find the podcasts here https://www.youtube.com/ and https://iono.fm/c/7917.

The oral history programme is funded by the Mellon Foundation.

21/11/2024

Why did they call it the “Dry Docks” of District Six?

Was it because so many stevedores lived there? Was it because they had a view of the Cape Town harbour? Or was it because the streets in the area were named after historic dockyards in England? We may never know how the Dry Docks got its name, but what we do know is that life in the Dry Docks had its own rhythm and rhyme.

In this podcast, Soraya Martheze gives us a unique perspective into what life was like there, how they spent their days, and how forced removals in the Dry Docks had a character of its own.

Guest: Soraya Martheze
Featuring: Matthew Nissen
Story, narration, editing & sound design: Lisa Hendricks
Photo credit: Stan Abrahams Collection, District Six Museum

All podcasts and digital stories can be found on YouTube & iono.fm.

Find the podcasts here https://www.youtube.com/ and https://iono.fm/c/7917.

The oral history programme is funded by the Mellon Foundation.



Cassiem

20/11/2024

In 1948, the National Party won the election, and South Africa became known as an Apartheid State. New segregationist laws were introduced, people were racially classified, and public spaces were categorised as European and Non-European.

In this podcast, you will hear some of our interviewees reflect on their experience of the Separate Amenities Act of 1953.

Guests: Belinda Bell Jackson, Ashley Cloete, Aboubarker Brown, Maureen Gallon, Marlene Ronnie, Derek Ronnie, Nur Toufie & Sekeenah Petersen

Featuring: Ayanda Mpono & Matthew Nissen
Story, narration, editing & sound design: Lisa Hendricks
Photo credit: UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives

All podcasts and digital stories can be found on YouTube & iono.fm.

Find the podcasts here https://www.youtube.com/ and https://iono.fm/c/7917.

The oral history programme is funded by the Mellon Foundation.

19/11/2024

Leaving Luyolo tells the story of the 1965 forced removals from Luyolo, a township located on the Simon’s Town mountains overlooking Long Beach. Established in 1896, Luyolo’s first residents were labourers working on the Southern Railway line. They were young single men living in dormitory-style housing units. By the late 1950s, these young men had gotten married and had children, and their children had children. Luyolo became home to generations of families that were all forced to move to Gugulethu.

In this podcast, we listen to Geoffrey Mamputa as he remembers the life he enjoyed in Luyolo and how he witnessed the forced removal of his entire community over one weekend.

Photo credit: “Xmas in Simon’s Town at my father’s brother’s house”. On the left: Dolly Mamputa, in the middle: Boetitjie Mamputa (Geoffery Mamputa’s father), and to the right his uncle’s wife and host, Tiebie Mamputa. c1961. Image supplied by Geoffrey Mamputa.

Guest: Geoffrey Mamputa
Featuring: Ayanda Mpono
Story, narration, editing & sound design: Lisa Hendricks

All podcasts and digital stories can be found on YouTube & iono.fm.

Find the podcasts here https://www.youtube.com/ and https://iono.fm/c/7917.

The oral history programme is funded by the Mellon Foundation.

Simon's Town Museum

18/11/2024

This is the story of Jacob and Louisa Daniels from Kommetjie, a small coastal village on the South Peninsula of the Cape. Jacob Daniels first arrived in Kommetjie in 1918. By 1967, he married Louisa, and together they raised a family of twelve children who enjoyed all the natural beauty and resources Kommetjie had to offer. In 1972, Kommetjie was declared a White Group Area, and the Daniels family was forcibly removed to Ocean View, a township three kilometres to the east of Kommetjie.

In this podcast, Johanna Williams and Louisa Layters remember the love and hard work that shaped their parents’ lives and their contribution to the development of Kommetjie.

Photo credit: Louisa Layters, Peter James Layters and their niece on their wedding day in Kommetjie. Image supplied by Louisa Layters and Johanna Williams.

Guests: Johanna Williams & Louisa Layters
Featuring: Ayanda Mpono
Story, narration, editing & sound design: Lisa Hendricks
Music: AleXZavesa, Pixabay

All podcasts and digital stories can be found on YouTube & iono.fm.

Find the podcasts here https://www.youtube.com/ and https://iono.fm/c/7917.

The oral history programme is funded by the Mellon Foundation.