Bernburg (dpa/sa) - How much colonial injustice is behind the objects in the museums in Saxony-Anhalt? The Association of Museums encourages institutions to take a closer look at the provenance and history of their objects from outside Europe. "We know from surveys and various other research that we have 37 museums in Saxony-Anhalt that have ethnological inventories and natural history inventories of non-European origin," said the coordinator for provenance research at the Saxony-Anhalt Museum Association, Annette Müller-Speitz, on Wednesday.
She assumes that there are between 30 and 300 objects in the respective collections that should be examined more closely for their colonial background. A so-called initial check has already been requested for three houses. So far, the search for Nazi-looted property had been in the foreground.
According to the managing director of the museum association, Danny Könnicke, the holdings with a colonial connection in the country are very sparse. It is not always wrong behind the objects. "They are often souvenirs of a tourist nature." Exact research should also help rule out injustice. Könnicke emphasized that it is not primarily about returning objects. Rather, it should be shown how the museum collections came about.
