DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2024.2.6| FRAUWALLNER: IN//OUT OF FRAME_ INSIGHTOUT 2(2024) 32 tourist’s souvenir that the other photographs in the album convey. In this context, Axster speaks of the pictorial motifs as a kind of trophy, even souvenir. 17 To continue this idea of photographs as trophies: Nath seems to have taken a special interest in images of Herero women. One image of a Herero woman is titled Herero-Schönheit [Herero Beauty], a portrait of a Black woman slightly crouched forward with her gaze fixed to the right side of the image, her breasts exposed. This photo is followed by a Hererofrau in Kriegsschmuck [Herero Woman in War Ornaments]: a young woman posing in front of a desert landsca­pe, touching her face with one hand while the other hangs straight next to her body(fig. 1). 18 The“war ornaments” depicted are actually a four-part attire, including a characteristic piece of headwear, usual­ly worn by Herero women early during adolescence. Women in similar“war dress” can be seen in other photos. Invisible female labour: the erasure of forced women labourers The Otavi railway was constructed between 1903 and 1906, initially to connect the port town of Swa­kopmund with the mines of Tsumeb to ease the trans­port of resources. As the route of the railway crossed contested territory, it was co-opted for warfare against Herero groups, for example to move soldiers of the Schutztruppe , supplies and prisoners of war or forced labourers. Simultaneously, railway spaces became targets of Herero-led attacks, which made construction work undesirable for white contract la­bourers. 19 Fig. 1:: woman with a piece of headwear which consists of a leather cap with a"crown" of horns symbolizing the Herero’s traditional source of livelihood: cattle husbandry. The photo album Zur Erinnerung an den Bau der Ota­vi-Bahn, 1903–1906 [In Remembrance of the Con­struction of the Otavi Railway, 1903–1906] was pub­lished by the Arthur Koppel AG in May 1907. Women are rarely visible in the photographs that show la­bourers; there are only a few examples in which women are“hidden” in crowds of men, for example in Otavi-Bahn: Kostausgabe an der Bauspitze [Otavi Railway: Meal Distribution at the Forefront of Con­struction]. The few examples where women come to the fore hint at their status as prisoners of war 20 but do not specify what they are doing at the construc­tion sites. The caption of a photograph depicting at least one woman, Otavi-Bahn: Verlegen von Wellb­lechrohren [Otavi Railway: Laying Corrugated Iron Pipes] does not acknowledge the human presence in 17 F. Axster, Koloniales Bildspektakel in 9x14: Bildpostkarten im Deutschen Kaiserreich (Bielefeld, 2014), 105–106,111. 18 TMW, Archiv für österr. Eisenbahngeschichte, EA-002910-29, Leutnant Nath, photo album(c. 1904–1908), n.p. 19 Lyon, Namibian Labor Empire, 115ff.(see n. 8). 20 See the images entitled Otavi-Bahn: Aus dem Felde gekommene Hereros melden sich an der Bauspitze als Gefangene and Otavi-Bahn: Hereros nach mehrwöchigem Aufenthalt bei der Otavi-Bahn.