Germany has returned hundreds of sound recordings of North African soldiers who were held as prisoners during World War I, helping to fill a major gap in Tunisia’s war archives.
During the French protectorate in Tunisia, thousands of soldiers were conscripted to fight in World War I as part of the African colonial riflemen – the tirailleurs. But little remains today in terms of archives or recordings documenting Tunisia’s role in the 1914-1918 conflict.
Now, a joint effort between the Lautarchiv of Humboldt University and the phonotheque of Tunisia’s Centre for Arab and Mediterranean Music has helped recover these lost voices.
Funded by the German Lost Art Foundation, the project marks a step towards restoring a missing chapter of Tunisia’s wartime history. Of the 445 recordings returned, 111 feature soldiers from across North Africa.
The discovery of the recordings came by chance in the 2000s, when Mounir Hentati, cultural advisor and former director of the Centre for Arab and Mediterranean Music, visited Berlin.
"One day, I was a bit tired, so I went to the library. Really, that's how it happened. I asked if there were any recordings related to Tunisia, and that was the turning point. I discovered a real treasure, and I dedicated myself to studying these documents and listening to them," Hentati told RFI.
Among the earliest recordings is a song expressing the hardships of war and exile, sung by a Tunisian soldier.
One of the soldiers, Sadok Ben Rachid, was held in a camp south of Berlin with nearly 4,000 prisoners when German researchers began recording them using gramophones and phonographic cylinders.
The project was part of an ethnographic study of North and Sub-Saharan African soldiers.
"Some were both poets and musicians, and they set words to old melodies to convey messages. Other prisoners were asked to recite the Quran or sing a melody from their region of origin. It’s a very varied material. For me, it’s very moving because it’s like sound archaeology," Hentati said.
"As part of a review of their colonial heritage policy, more and more researchers and voices in Germany have called for these archives to be released, to bring these voices back to life and, in a way, to resocialise them."
After 25 years of discussions, the archives have finally been returned to Tunisia.
► This report was produced by Lila Blaise for the RFI podcast Reportage Afrique.
