After the route yesterday in Pretoria led to many of the high fences surrounding villas of wealthy city dwellers over, the aim was now Soweto, the township from Johannesburg with about two million predominantly black residents. The story began in Soweto in 1904, when the settlement Klipspruit the first of a series of settlements for color
e gold miners was built. The racist government of Johannesburg was the district in 1963 the importance of an artificially created living ghetto outside the city inhabited by whites, and called it "South Western Townships ". The painful history of this settlement is still noticeable today. Throughout this encounter the traces of apartheid, people marginalized because of their skin color and sentenced. Accompanied by a leader from Soweto, we were able to very closely by the courage of many people who live here, thank God, learn to overcome the country's past. The tour provides insight into poor circumstances, in which the inhabitants live in part today in corrugated iron huts opened, but also the prospect of all that has now been achieved. The unemployment rate in Soweto is still around 40 percent. The government built small houses where the people in need rent-free can live and now have electricity and water.
Among the particular impressions of the day is the open friendliness of the residents met us as onlookers waving their lives and welcomed, with a pride and joy of life, in the midst of these circumstances, touched and delighted. A first stop we made at the Regina Mundi church, the largest Catholic church in Soweto. In the resistance against apartheid, the church was the center. Built in 2000 it was with worshipers 
political events center for up to 6000 people. How much their life was threatened while showing the bullet holes on the ceiling. The police opened fire on the church during a meeting. The altar cloth covering a broken edge. A police officer struck the stone from a rifle butt. Before this altar the cathedral choir sang today. Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller spoke to us here is a prayer for peace.
lived in Soweto, the two men who brought the peace of South Africa. We visited the street, which they shared only one of the world two Nobel Peace Prize: Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, who after 27 years in prison a 
994 elected in the first free elections in the history of the country's first black president. His house where he was arrested in 1962 and he was in after his release from prison first came back, was another stop for us. The small house is now a museum.
A road further recalls the most impressive monuments of Soweto to the struggle for freedom. 1976 school and student protests rocked Soweto. They turned against 
arrangement of the government, in the higher classes only in Afrikaans, the language of the rulers to teach, and not in English. It was the occasion for the youth to stand up to the age-long oppression. By the bullets of the police here Hector Peterson died. The photo of the boy killed on the arms of his friend, desperate accompanied by his sister, went to the media around the world, drew the attention of foreign countries to South Africa and the bloody suppression of the uprising. But it was also the first step on the way to the abolition of apartheid. In this way we were disturbing testimonies of people in Soweto, the Hector Peterson Memorial retrace a little. The memorial museum was installed in 1992. Large pictures of the uprising, testimony of the parties, banners: The authentic exhibits took us to be in a time of oppression and the furious determination to escape the contempt that made it a crime as a black man born into it. Still we stood in front of a TV recording the daily show, was in on German TV at that time reported to differ materially from the riots in Soweto. The view from the museum is along the road on which the students marched for their dignity and were fired upon, directly to the Wegecke, at the Hector Peterson died.
middle of the settlement of Soweto, we could be guests for lunch. In the afternoon we went back to Johannesburg. In the St. Vincent School for the Deaf sister Claudette Bogner welcomed us. The 63-year-old Dominican Missionary Sisters comes from Haines / Emily Haines. During the conversation she told us that, in the hospital Mallersdorf Sisters was born. At the age of 20 she went to South Africa. After training as a teacher was there for her: "In the deaf school in Johannesburg, we need someone." That was the phrase that turned her life. She teaches mathematics and technical drawing. For ten years she runs the school for the disabled, will be promoted in the following the abolition of apartheid, 240 mostly black children from mostly poor families. Together with five other sisters and many lay people she works with children aged three years and young people, preparing them for their 
way in life. After a church service in the chapel of the school told Sister Claudette of their daily lives and the many challenges. The cathedral choir thanked the sisters with a musical treat from the homeland. As the folk song "Birds of a Feather" with the text ending "... I can not go with you because I have to stay here," came spontaneously from the sisters: "And I will stay here," For Sister Claudette is clear: "I love South Africa very much, despite the many political upheavals, which we have been through. I would find it hard when I return to Germany would have. This is my home! "A bit homesick but then she admitted it, as they listened to the cathedral choir. "I've also had many visitors from my family over the years that I'm here. This is always difficult. "With a slight English accent she stressed but then decided that she really is at home in South Africa. She enjoyed all the more the surprise visit from the diocese. "I am delighted that I'm not forget!"
We were all very impressed by the work of the sisters. Bishop Gerhard Ludwig expressed respect for "all that is done here and done" this way: "Also what is not observed in public, is remarkable in the eyes of God. Here it depends on the commitment of the nuns and lay people vi 
eler. It is important that we keep track of what is being done in secret to good. It is important that you give the people who are in need of help, the awareness that they are needed, that their life has a dignity that does not depend on whether it is them awarded by other people or denied. "He thanked the sisters that make them well away from home every day, with CD recordings of the cathedral choir, which will commemorate the visit of the choir in Johannesburg.
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