The donation made by Anne-Marie Polényk

Michel Polényk was born in Normandy in 1941. After carrying out his military service in the recently created Republic of Algeria, he studied German at the University of Caen, graduating in 1968.

In 1981, he began his career at the University of Reunion, where he set up the German Institute and the Association of Friends of German Culture in Reunion (ACAR).  In 1983, he began to organise linguistic and cultural exchanges between Reunion and the Federal Republic of Germany. As a lecturer-researcher in German, he specialised in German colonisation in Africa. He was also a very keen collector and during his travels, he brought together thousands of documents on the subject of the colonisation of the African continent and more particularly the German colonial empire in East Africa.

After his death in 2009, his wife Anne-Marie Polényk made a gift of this precious collection to various institutions in Reunion, including the Villèle historical museum. Over 2,000 documents, historical journals, explorers’ accounts, original etchings, maps, postcards and old photographs were added to the museum’s collections, focusing on the essential topics of colonisation or slavery.

The donation as a whole was initially listed as ‘study documents’.  Regularly, a selection of the most precious documents is presented to the regional scientific committee, to decide which elements are to be included in the museum’s regular inventory.

Inv. ME.2013.877
Von Heigelin Kamerun 1904-05
Anonymous, circa 1905, Cameroon
Black-and-white silver photographic process, printed on paper 
9 x 13 cm