The Atlas Obscura Podcast · Monday, September 14, 2026
Professor Brenda El Croft states that the Lutheran mission at Hermannsburg was a relatively safe place for Western Arrente people during a time when massacres and forced child removals were occurring elsewhere in the Northern Territory. She mentions the last publicly acknowledged massacre of Aboriginal people in 1928 happened a few hours away.
“Brenda El Croft is a professor of critical indigenous creative led knowledges at the Australian National University. The Lutheran mission that had been set up at Hermannsburg was actually a very safe place for Western Arrente people. Because there were still massacres going on in the Northern Territory right up until the last publicly acknowledged massacre of Aboriginal people in 1928.”
“That last acknowledged massacre happened just a few hours from where Albert lived. Dozens of indigenous people were murdered in a killing spree that was led by a Northern Territory police constable. And then, the forcible separations of children from their families.”