‘Human zoos’: Europe struggles to confront its racist past

In colonial Europe, ethnological displays of “exotic” people and “human zoos” were common. As early as the 15th century, people were kidnapped from colonized areas and brought to Europe for display. In the late 19th century, racist human displays became particularly lucrative. They were also used to demonstrate the supposed “superiority” of European civilization.

People from European colonies were lured to Europe under false pretenses and forced to work in degrading circumstances. They were often presented to viewers as “savages” or cannibals.

Across Europe, there has been little official recognition of colonial-era crimes, and there is still very little public awareness.

‘Human zoos’ in Hamburg

In 1874, Hamburg merchant Carl Hagenbeck was one of the first to exhibit humans alongside animals in zoos and quickly became a successful “showman of ethnography”. His Hagenbeck company, which still exists today under the same name and runs the main zoo in Hamburg, in northern Germany, made money from human exhibits until the 1930s.

Historian Jürgen Zimmerer recently told German broadcaster NDR that in these zoos people were shown in “an environment that has been deliberately staged as being primitive”. In turn, Claus Hagenbeck, Carl’s great-grandson, minimized the damage caused by the exhibitions and described them as an “art form” of the time.

The Hamburg Zoo has since said it is re-examining its past, but there is currently no indication that humans used to be displayed there or any attempt to commemorate them.

Portuguese World Exhibition in Lisbon

In Lisbon, capital of another vast European colonial power, humans were also exhibited in 1940 at the Portuguese World Exhibition. People were brought from colonized countries to live in an environment built to simulate their supposed habitat. They were used as “indigenous extras” to confirm colonial stereotypes.

Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar used the 1940 World Exposition to glorify the colonial era and strengthen his own regime, and today the debate about Portugal’s colonial past often focuses on him. But Elsa Peralta, a historian at the University of Lisbon, believes this is inappropriate: “The main narrative of the democratic period is that the crimes of the colonial period were linked to the dictatorship,” she said. “It does not reflect the long duration of Portugal’s colonial history.” Peralta added that even the commemorative plaque honoring the victims of the “human zoo” in the city’s botanical gardens today explicitly refers to the Salazarist period.

She pointed out that many Portuguese were still unaware of the racist displays, but said there had been a growing public debate about the country’s colonial past in recent years, albeit at a slower pace than in other former colonial states. “Portuguese society is slowly waking up to this issue, it has not yet been addressed,” she noted.

‘Human Zoo 2.0’

In Belgium, which exhibited people in a “human zoo” as early as 1958 at the Brussels World’s Fair, the debate over the country’s colonial crimes has become particularly lively in recent years.

Activist and anthropologist Stella Nyanchama Okemwa of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) criticized the use of exhibitions to explore this chapter of Belgium’s past and honor its victims. She says that showing photos of ethnographic exhibitions can reproduce racist practices. “For me, it was ‘human zoo’ 2.0,” she said. “It triggered a lot of trauma.”

She thinks it’s imperative that Belgian society acknowledge the trauma of the colonial past, but says there seems to be little will to do so. According to a 2020 poll, half of the country thought that colonialism had more positive consequences for the Belgian Congo than negative ones.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the spread of cinema, television and mass tourism changed the way of seeing “exotic” people. “People no longer brought adventures into their own country, but could afford to travel after them,” said historian Anne Dreesbach.

Belgium has not apologized for its colonial crimes. “People don’t want to get involved in this conversation because it will open Pandora’s box,” said Stella Nyanchama Okemwa.

This article has been translated from German.