A historical fiction story set in a dark, often-ignored time
Just before World War I erupts in Europe, thousands of miles to the south, the German government wages a merciless campaign of dominion against the native Herero and Nama people. Its atrocities involved the work of the eugenicists whose “scientific” experiments would inform the Nazis’ Holocaust decades later.
“The Sands Shall Witness” features a young German colonial aide, Conrad Huber, who arrives in present-day Namibia in 1903 just as his government’s brutality has pushed the native communities to fierce rebellion. Eventually, an all-out war and German concentration camps will leave a majority dead.
Amid the geopolitical turmoil, Conrad meets and falls in love with Sybille Maharero, the daughter of the Herero chieftain leading the rebellion against the Germans. Together, they will overcome their divisions to join in a desperate flight across the Kalahari Desert that will test the very limits of their humanity and their unlikely union.
