Layers in concrete

If you follow our street down several blocks, you'll find a small square. On one side of the road there's a playground bordered by a bakery and a hair salon. On the other side is a small monument. It's easy to pass up, a little dirty, and less eye-catching than the apartment buildings behind it.

The monument is to Carl Peters. What's remarkable about it that it's not only standing, but has been added to over time.

First, what I found out about Carl Peters:

Born in Germany, Peters finished university and went to live with an uncle in London around 1880. Whether his ideas about colonization started back home or whether the time in England made him dream of  empire, I can't say. After five years abroad, Peters moved to Berlin and started the German East Africa Company. With some political wrangling, he convinced Otto von Bismarck to let the German East Africa Company establish a territory in what is now Tanzania. Peters didn't want to stop there. He had his sights on Uganda and Equatoria (now South Sudan) but got chased off by the Brits and their Imperial East Africa Company.

Peters returned to Tanzania in 1891 with the title of Reichskommissar for German East Africa. With the nickname 'hangman Peters,' he was known for his brutal treatment of the native people. In 1897, he was officially condemned for bloodshed and cruelty and removed from his post.

Fast forward to 1935 in Germany. Peters has been dead for a couple of decades, but Adolf Hitler praises Peters as a fellow believer in the superior race. He issues a decree to 'rehabilitate' Peters in history. That's when the Nazi party must have constructed this monument, in Peters' home town of Hannover.

It's pretty amazing that this hunk of concrete still stands, since about 90% of our neighborhood was destroyed by bombs during World War II. People pass by this hunk of concrete all day long - old men clutching paper bags of rolls from the bakery, moms and kids heading to the playground.
Fast forward to... the 80s? 90s? I can't be sure. That's when this piece was added to the Peters monument:

It says something like this "This monument was erected by the National Socialists in 1935. It stood for the glorification of colonialism and the master race. For us it is a reminder of the charter of human rights we must use for the equality of all humans, people and races" (Real Germans out there, feel free to correct my translation. Despite all of the words running together, I learned some new vocabulary here).

What I find cool about this is that no one tore the monument down. No one attempted to erase this part of history. They simply added a layer of history to it.
And isn't that what humankind does? We slap down some mortar and build layer upon layer of experience. Some is ugly, some is beautiful.

Fast forward to... fairly recently. Someone took a can of orange spray paint and wrote all over the new part of the monument. I can't read what it says (tell me if you can make it out). I hope, really hope, that this grafitti is the name of some drunk 19 year-old who thought it would be fun to tag here, and not a neo-Nazi slogan. Whatever it says, this orange scribble is another layer to add to the story.