The Luf Boat, A Looted Treasure

Along with monuments and street names, the delightful objects in many Western museums are remnants of colonialism. Götz Aly uncovers the brutality with which German colonialists went about looting in the South Seas, using the example of the island of Luf. There, the invaders destroyed islanders’ huts and boats and nearly completely exterminated the population. In 1902, Hamburg merchants seized the final surviving example of the island’s artistically built, high-seaworthy outrigger boats. Today, this unique culture treasure  serves as decoration in an entranceway of the Humboldt Forum Museum in Berlin.

Götz Aly documents the brutality, destructive fury and greed with which profiteers, ethnologists, navy men and museum directors fell upon cultural treasures. Even today, these looted items are admired by museum visitors, who remain oblivious to the suffering of the people whose cultural treasures were stolen.