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Inside Stellenbosch University's

house of horrors
23m ago
Prega Govender

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A punishment room and "Hool 88", a room containing equipment

and documents depicting abusive practices, have been uncovered
at Wilgenhof residence.

Designer: Sharlene Rood

News24 has obtained pictures showing what

Stellenbosch University found in their oldest
men's residence in a secret search operation last
week.

Among the items are crude drawings depicting

what appears to be male sexual assault and a
log book detailing the activities of Wilgenhof's
disciplinary committee called the Nagligte.

Students told News24 that the "strafkamer" or

punishment room at the residence contained
horrifying pictures of alleged abuse of students.

Crude drawings depicting what appears to be male

sexual assault, black hoods and a toxic mixture of
linseed oil and aloe crystals allegedly used to bring
on acute diarrhea. These were among the
shocking items discovered in two rooms at
Stellenbosch University's oldest men's residence,
Wilgenhof.

Also among the items confiscated from the

residence was an "indemnity form" signed in 2023,
that gave a private company owned by former
Wilgenhof students the authority to conduct "boot-
camp style exercise programs" that may lead to
injuries "and possible death".

News24 has obtained more than 30 photographs

taken during a surprise audit by the university’s
management of two secret rooms at the Wilgenhof
residence. Staff found the items in two rooms that
the university said in a statement on Thursday "still
need to be considered to understand the nature
and context thereof".

An "indemnity form" signed by a Wilgenhof student in 2023 was

retrieved. In the form, students agree they may be injured during
"boot-camp" exercises.

A source described the rooms as a "punishment

room" and "Hool (filthy space) 88", where initiation,
and other, paraphernalia are kept.

This notebook dated October 2021 features the names of three

residents who had to be "taken out" and a sketch of a Nagligte
guard, dressed in executioner-like regalia.

Supplied

A student told News24 that the university

conducted a "surprise" inspection at the residence
last Monday after a staff member received an
anonymous tip-off that there were "two
suspicious rooms in Wilgenhof that are
always locked".

"The staff members had to break down the doors

of these two rooms, and what they found was truly
horrific," he said.

"The first room can be described as a ritualistic

/discipline room. There were used condoms,
broken eggshells, writings on the walls and masks
the 'Nagligte' use (a "disciplinary committee") while
disciplining the students. They also found what
they suspected to be a concoction of 'cement and
linseed oil' that was fermenting."

News24 has the photograph showing a used

condom and broken eggshells.

The student said the other room consisted of "very

meticulously organised records of what went on in
that room".

"There were photos, names, signatures and

descriptions with the exact dates of what
happened in that room and when."

Bottles of wine, cans of pilchards, water bottles with concoctions in

it and various sketches of initiation practices were found at
Wilgenhof.

Supplied

One of the disturbing photographs shows a room

with the walls and ceiling covered in graffiti which
News24 understands was known as a "strafkamer"
(punishment room). A vehicle tyre, a small wooden
table, a wine barrel, and small paint cans litter the
room.

Another room had the number 88 painted in black

above the door frame. The significance of this
number, which also appears on a number of
drawings found in the room, is yet to be
ascertained by a university investigation. However,
the number 88 is widely known to be a white
supremacist symbol, with the letters serving as an
abbreviation for a Nazi salute. A photograph of a
black triangular hood resembling executioners
hoods of those worn by members of a known
white supremacist group, also feature the number
88 painted on them in white.

The hoods were worn by the so-called Nagligte,

the Wilgenhof residents students’ disciplinary
committee. A photograph of a past committee,
titled, "Wilgenhof Nagligte 2020/21" shows 11
members in the picture with a pig’s head on the
floor in front of them.

A photo of the 2020/2021 Wilgenhof Nagligte.

Paul Joubert, a sociology student at Stellenbosch

in 2020, described the Nagligte (Night Lights) or
alternatively "DK" as an unofficial "disciplinary
committee".

In a blog post titled, "The Truth About Wilgenhof",

he said that "in order to keep discipline in
residence, it is still a practice for members to dress
up in black Ku Klux Klan uniforms and dole out
punishment as they see fit to any resident who
they feel has transgressed the official or unofficial
code of the residence".

Joubert alleged that the punishment reportedly

always took place past 01:00 and "has taken the
form of dragging residents out of their beds,
beatings with broken glass bottles, being forced to
give humiliating speeches, admitting 'guilt' while
naked, and performing extremely punishing
physical activities for hours on end".

He also mentioned the "Vleisfees" (Meat Festival)

practice in which first-year students "are also
thrown with paint and made to eat a disgusting
aloe and linseed oil concoction".

Various notebooks with lewd messages and drawings of sexual acts

were found in the hidden rooms. The notebooks contained the
names of Wilgenhof residents who had to be punished.

Also among the items seized by university

management were several graphic sketches
apparently depicting male sexual assault and
another of a person performing oral sex. The
university management also seized a black and
white photograph of a naked male student carrying
another student on his shoulders.

Another photograph features a large board that

contains images of a host of student initiation
practices taken over several decades.

Also among the paraphernalia was a two-page

"indemnity" form signed by a student on 23 August
last year. It states that "intense boot-camp style
exercise programmes" conducted at the residence
by a private company headed by a former student,
in which residents of Wilgenhof were allowed to
participate, "may include the voluntary ingestion of
noxious linseed oil and aloe crystals and the
possibility of seeing other participants nude".

According to the document, the programmes,

known as "The Long Term Plan", were organised by
a private company Abahlobo Rentals. The
company’s director, Patrick Kilbourne, a Wilgenhof
alumnus, said he was not going to comment "at
this stage". After receiving News24's questions, he
deleted references to Wilgenhof and his company
from his LinkedIn profile.

Participants are warned in the document that the

risks of participation "include minor injuries such as
cuts and bruises, major injuries like broken limbs,
adverse effects from ingesting noxious substances
and possible death and potential emotional
discomfort from observing nudity".

The document is signed by the student and

features his mother’s telephone number.
Contacted by News24, the mother said she knew
nothing of the form and undertook to respond to
questions, but did not do so.

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The rooms contained artwork depicting the "Nagligte" wearing

executioner-like outfits.

Meanwhile, another photograph shows hand-

written entries on an A4 page that appears to
resemble a disciplinary record of sorts.

One reads: "Initiation. Two years later and we are

back. Jan is still a p**s. Tonight the slaps will rain on
Dewald like Hiroshima… F..k this place will surprise
them tonight. Tonight Dewald shits crystals.
Tomorrow he shits blood. In two days he will shit a
lot."

This discovery by university management will cast

the spotlight on the Wilgenhof residence which
was once home to rugby icon Danie Craven, retail
tycoon Christo Wiese, constitutional court justice
Edwin Cameron, anti-apartheid cleric Beyers
Naude, and disgraced Steinhoff boss Markus
Jooste.

Costumes and hoods like those that worn by executioners were

displayed in the rooms.

Supplied

A former Stellenbosch student told News24 that

when she was studying at the university years ago,
she once walked into the Wilgenhof courtyard at
night to look for her boyfriend.

"It was late at night. I saw two people with long

coats and sharp pointed hoodies outside one of
the first-year students’ rooms. They looked like the
Ku Klux Klan. I got a fright and walked out because
I realised it was something I shouldn’t have seen.
When I later asked my boyfriend about it, he said I
must have been mistaken and nothing like that
exists at Wilgenhof. I never forget those visuals. It
scared me."

The punishment room is spray-painted with the names of Wilgenhof

residents who were members of the 'Nagligte', the disciplinary
committee.

Cameron, who is Stellenbosch University’s

chancellor, declined to comment. In 2002,
Cameron told Wilgenhof that initiation practices no
longer had a place in the new South Africa.

The room called Hool 88 contained pictures of Wilgenhof's initiation

and punishment practices spanning over 100 years.

A board bearing photos of initiation practices spanning many years.

Stellenbosch University spokesperson Martin

Viljoen said it noted the very serious nature of the
articles and documentation found in the two
rooms.

"While the articles seem to point to unacceptable

practices in the residence, the panel considering
the material must be given a fair chance to review
all the material. Therefore, SU cannot at this stage
elaborate on the details of the items, since it is now
the subject of a thorough review by the panel,
which will advise the University on the further
appropriate handling of this matter."

He said the university’s executive leadership had

consistently affirmed its position "on ensuring the
human dignity of all our students, and we will
continue unabated to eradicate unacceptable
practices from our campuses and residences".

Pictures of nude students, bottles of alcohol and eerie-looking dolls

and objects were found in the secret chamber.

A cartoon discovered in one of the rooms at Wilgenhof residence,

depicting the Nagligte residence disciplinary committee.

Nudity is a common theme in the objects and books found at

Wilgenhof. An indemnity form mentions exposure to nudity.

A used condom surrounded by eggshells found in a room at

Wilgenhof.

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