“…my grandmother died in the war near Ozonguti. Her name was Inajovandu which means the mother of the people. She became weak and sickly during the flight toward the Kalahari (Omaheke) desert. So, my grandmother’s brother Kazizi and his friends instructed my mother, Maheuri, and her sister, Ngerikarere, to kept on going with the rest of the family members while they helped her and the weak * In the evening Kazizi and the men rejoined the group without my grandmother. My mother asked him: “Where is my mother? He looked away. He told her that they had left her under a tree. “There is nothing we could do, and we are all too weak and tired to carry her.’ Then my mother retorted: “You mean you just left my mother like that to die?'”
“After this exchange my mother walked away from the rest of the family. She roamed alone in the Omaheke sandveld for some time. Then she met up with the Tjirare clan who recognized her and stayed with them until they were captured by the German patrolmen. She met her surviving family later in the concentration camps…. My mother was a fearless woman.”
“So to answer your question, my grandmother was left to die under a tree. That’s the story my mother told me about her. She was left under the tree to die. She was left under the tree to die…”
Based on excerpts of the interview with my late grandmother
Ehrenstine Inaambepera Zauisomue-2014