Message of Condolences to Ms T Strasburg and Family Trevor Fowler

THE PRESIDENCY: REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA Private Bag X1000. Pretoria, 0001

13 September 2006

Ms Tony Strasburg No. 4 Glendovr 204 Highveld Road Seapoint 8005

Message of Condolences to Ms T Strasburg and family

It was with a great deal of sadness that the Presidency received the news of the passing away of Ms Hilda Bernstein.

At this trying and difficult moment all of us share the loss, sadness and pain that have descended on you and your family. Even though we all know that death is the inevitable end to life in this world, the loss of a family elder is always felt more deeply, removing as it does a pillar of continuity and stability.

Please accept our deepest condolences to you and your family. It is our prayer that you will derive comfort and strength from the long and fulfilled years you spent with her during her life-time. May your load be lightened by the knowledge that our thoughts and prayers are with you.

With my prayers for God's comfort,

Yours sincerely,

Trevor Fowler Acting Director-General 16 October 2006

Mr Toni Strasburg Flat 3 38 Canfield Gardens LONDON NW6 3 LB

^ r y < ^ r /

Thank you very much for the kind words about the arrangements for your dear mother’s memorial event at the High Commission!

I am very happy if you and the family were pleased with the outcome.

Your mother was a great inspiration to many of us ANC women. For Their Triumphs and Their Tears remains a key document in the records on fierce resistance to cruelty by South African women.

That is only part of the reason Hilda Bernstein’s event had to be done with special care.

Thank you for allowing us the privileged and responsibility to participate in honouring a grand lady.

Sincerely

Lindiwe Mabuza High Commissioner

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AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS Office of the Secretary General

MESSAGE OF CONDOLENCE ON THE PASSING AWAY OF HILDA BERNSTEIN

The African National Congress joins democrats and communists across the country in mourning the passing away of Cde Hilda Bernstein, a stalwart of our movement and an untiring fighter for the cause of the oppressed and exploited.

Like her many family, friends and comrades, the ANC is deeply saddened by this loss. Like them, we nevertheless draw solace from the profound and selfless

contribution she made throughout her long and rich life to the cause of freedom,

democracy and equality.

Cde Hilda was one among the few white South Africans of her generation who were prepared to stake the relative comfort of a life of privilege in pursuit of her principles and political conviction. Her commitment to the struggle for national liberation and class struggle,; including her preparedness to stand for public office as a member of the Communist Party, was an indication of her willingness to defy the norms of an oppressive society, even in the face of arrest, banning, censorship and exile.

Through her writings, Cde Hilda exposed In unflinching detail and honesty many of the iniquities of the apartheid system. She also chronicled the struggles and sacrifices of the South African people, providing an inspiration for all those engaged in struggle and leaving for future generations a rich documentary legacy.

Chief Albert Luthuli House, 54 Sauer Street, Johannesburg 2001 • PO Box 61884, Marshalltown 2107, South Africa Tel: 011 376 1000 ■ Fax: 011 376 1134 • E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.anc.org.za CENTRAL NUMBER!: 006 717 7077 TO:4615878 P:2 iVSEP-^05 09:19 FROM: 0214E60295

Having been actively involved in democratic and non-racial women’s formations over many decades. Cde Hilda was a pillar in the struggle for women's emancipation and a champion of the involvement of women in all elements of the struggle.

As we mark th«ti 50m anniversary of the heroic women's march of 1956 - of which Cde Hilda was an organiser - and celebrate the launch of the Progressive Women’s Movement, we ere called upon to draw on the example of Hilda Bernstein as we open up a new front in the struggle for gender equality.

Cde Hilda was a talented writer and artist, who used her skills not only to express herself, but to give a voice to those who had for so long been kept in silence.

As we pay tribute to an extraordinary South African, freedom fighter and communist, let us draw inspiration from what Hilda Bernstein stood for and how she lived her life.

Let us pay her the ultimate tribute, by taking forward the struggle that she pursued

with determination and vigour throughout her many years.

Hamba Kahle Qabane.

Kgalem a------Secretary General

Johannesburg 13 September 2006

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% OBITUARIES HILDA BERNSTEIN South African activist who fought against apartheid and after being exiled continued the struggle from London

PER-ANDERS PETTERSSON/ GETTY IMAGES HILDA BERNSTEIN was one the US and Africa. Her illustra of the last surviving leaders of tions appeared in books and on apartheid resistance in South book jackets and on posters Africa in the 1950s and 1960s. and cards for the AAM. As the newly elected Afrikaner She wrote several books, nationalist government formal including No 46 — Steve ised racial segregation and (1978), referring to Biko being flexed its muscles, opposition the 46th person to die in securi leaders were either jailed or, ty police detention; Death Is like Bernstein and her hus Part of the Process (1983), a pol band, forced into exile. itical thriller; For Their Tri During 30 turbulent years umphs and for Their Tears: in South Africa, Bernstein Women in Apartheid South became an important opposi Africa (1985); and The Rift — tion figure, campaigning The Exile Experience of South among fellow whites and also Africans (1994). organising resistance by anti The Bernsteins, who later apartheid women of all races. moved out of London to Wales Driven out of the country by and then rural Oxfordshire, the threat to their own safety returned to South Africa to and the future of their young take part in the country’s first family, Bernstein and her hus non-racial election in band spent the next 30 years They visited South Africa campaigning from Britain for several times and donated most an end to white rule in Pretoria of their books to the University and returned in 1994 to help in of KwaZulu-Natal in Rusty’s „ the election of their friend, home city of Durban. Nelson Mandela, as South In 2002 the couple took part Africa’s first black president. in a reunion of the Rivonia trial- Bernstein was born Hilda Bernstein: on one occasion when the security police came in the front door to arrest her she fled through the back door lists in Johannesburg. Later Schwarz in London in 1915 to that year Rusty died and Bern Russian immigrants. Her her junior. Two years later found enough ways around the tion and banned several daughter, the Bernsteins were stein moved to Cape Town to father, a Bolshevik, left the Hilda Bernstein was elected to restrictions to help to set up the organisations, including the reunited in hiding and then live with one of her children. family to return to his home the Johannesburg City Council, Federation of South African African National Congress fled north into Bechuanaland In 2004 she was given the land when she was 10, and its only communist member. Women and was an organiser (ANC). Then, in 1963 it put on (now Botswana). They arrived Luthuli Silver Award for “con When she was 18 she emigrated In 1946 she ended her term of the massed Women’s March trial ten of most senior eventually in London, where tribution to the attainment of a to South Africa and worked in as a councillor and was also to Pretoria in 1956. activists, including Rusty Bern they were later joined by all free and democratic advertising, publishing and convicted of helping an illegal In 1958 the grip tightened fur stein. This was known as the four children. South Africa”. journalism. black mineworkers’ strike. ther and Bernstein’s banning or Rivonia trial, the name taken Bernstein wrote the autobio The same year Bernstein - irfitowekcd by the rise of During the 1950s the der was extended to prevent from the Johannesburg suburb graphical The World that Was reflected: “Maybe this little fascism in Europe, she joined Communist Party was banned her from writing or publishing. where the ANC leaders had Ours (1967, revised 2004) and group of whites did make a the youth wing of the socialist but its members, including Meanwhile, Rusty spent four been arrested. Rusty was the continued her political work, difference, however small. I feel __SonMr- African. lab o u r Party. Bernstein’s husband, reorgan years from 1956 in and out of only one acquitted but, as he especially in the women’s proud we were among those However, its ised underground. In between art as one of the 150 accused left the dock where Mandela section of the ANC and also who helped to influence the oppression of blacks was, at ____ g r he in the mammoth Treason Trial, and the others had been jailed the Anti-Apartheid Movement inevitable change, which has best, ambiguous, and by 1940 family, Bernstein continued at the end of which all were for life, he was rearrested and (AAM). Despite initial despair come much sooner and she had joined the non-racial her political work and was a acquitted. charged but then given bail. at being wrenched from her calmly than I ever felt Communist Party. founder and national secretary In 1961 Hilda Bernstein was A few days later the security adopted country, she took full She is survived by She rose quickly, serving on of the South African Peace arrested and held for five police came for Hilda Bern advantage of being free to write children. a regional committee and the Council. She had to give this up months without trial during the stein, but she fled through the and speak in public. p. national executive and in 1941 after the Government banned state of emergency after the back door as they arrived at her She also began a new career Hilda Bernstein, political married a party colleague, her from being a member of 26 Sharpeville killings. house and went into hiding. as an artist, with exhibitions of activist, was bom on May 1 Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein, a qui organisations and from attend The Government stepped up Leaving their three youngest her etchings, drawings and 1915. She died on September etly spoken architect five years ing meetings. However, she its efforts to crush the opposi children with their eldest paintings being held in Britain, 8, 2006, aged 91. Julie McDonald - Studio ONE, 190 Bree Street, Cape Town

The Guardian I Monday September 18 2006 25 Obituaries Hilda Bernstein

Activist and author, she fought against Founder of the Riders apartheid in South of the Purple Sage Africa and in exile roups dedicated to the songs of the Old West have found themselves he partnership of Hilda many appropriate IBernstein, who has died names, the Sons of the in Cape Town aged 91, Pioneers, the Ranch and her husband, Lionel Boys, Riders In The Sky, “Rusty” Bernstein (obitu but none more evoca ary, June 26 2002), fea tive than the Riders of the Purple Sage. tured long and endur- Buck Page, the group’s founder, who has ingly in the struggle died aged 84, took the nam e from a book against apartheid, both in South Africa by the prolific Western writer Zane Grey. and in their English exile. Perhaps Hilda’s How well he chose is borne out by the most unprecedented accomplishment fact that a rival group borrowed it, and was to persuade white voters to elect more than a generation later a country her, a communist, to the Johannesburg rock band called themselves the New city council. But that was 1943, before Riders of the Purple Sage. Hilda and communism were red-carded Page conceived the idea of the group by the Afrikaner nationalist referee. in 1936, when, barely in his teens, he led Hilda Bernstein was an all-rounder - a quartet playing cowboy songs on radio she could “talk the talk” (through her station KDKA in his home town of Pitts books and rousing oratory) and “walk burgh, Pennsylvania. At the time such the walk” (she was a founder, in 1956, of groups were usually stringband forma the non-racial Federation of South tions of fiddles, banjos and guitars, fol African Women; and had a conviction, in lowing the example of popular troupes 1946, for involvement in a black such as Otto Gray’s Oklahoma Cowboys. mineworkers’ strike). But alongside her Page, who played many instruments, fem inism w as a devotion to her hom e among them, fiddle, banjo and guitar, and her four children. A colleague at the augmented the line-up with an accor Johannesburg publishers where Hilda dion to “fill up the sound”. edited a family magazine, recalls her After three years, the band moved to rushing home early to make naartjie New York to broadcast over WOR and play (mandarin) marmalade. regularly at the Village Bam, in Greenwich Hilda W atts grew up in London’s East Village, opened by Meyer Horowitz in End, the daughter of Jewish Russian em 1930, that presented downhome country igrants. Her father, Simeon Schwarz was music to uptown sophisticates. When the a Bolshevik and was made the Soviet United States entered the second world trade attache in London in 1919, but was war, Page served in the US Navy. recalled to Moscow in 1925, never to Then, in 1943, Foy Willing, a singer return. His widow, Dora, emigrated to working on the west coast, redeployed Johannesburg with Hilda, the youngest their name. His Riders of the Purple Sage of the three daughters, in 1932. Hilda had better luck with the title, both on was quickly active in the youth branch records and in Western movies. Eventu of the Labour party, but in 1940 joined ally Page found out about his Californian the Communist party. A fine public rival, but, according to his manager, Gary speaker with an exceptional organisa Bright, he and-Willingbpcame-friends, tional ability, she was elected to the Besides, Willing retired his Riders in 1952. council by the voters of Hillbrow, the I About that time Page himself moved most (or only) avant garde o f the sub to the w est coast, w here he w orked as a urbs, and certainly helped by South studio musician, as well as for TV shows Africa being an ally of Moscow. But it such as Tales of Wells Fargo, Wagon gave her a further insight into the w o e Bernstein’s family emigrated to Johannesburg in 1932, where she joined the Communist party and became a local councillor. Train and Laramie. His guitar playing ful plight of urban Africans, particularly She and her husband Rusty, below, with Mandela, returned to South Africa in order to work for an ANC victory in 1994 was featured in the theme music for Bo the migrant gold miners. nanza and 77 Sunset Trip. He also took Throughout the 1950s, Hilda worked and sound - people coming to swim, to apartheid Movement posters and greet drama. Those who heard her at meetings acting roles in movies as varied as tirelessly to better the condition of African talk, to borrow books, the children’s ing cards, and combined that with were left in no doubt about the serious Destry Rides Again, Spartacus and A Star women, despite being banned from 28 or friends of all ages; people who never shows of her etchings around the world. ness of events in South Africa. After the is Bom. In the early 1960s he re-formed ganisations. She helped organise the rang the bell or knocked, but called a She also chronicled the big story with Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, in the Riders of the Purple Sage. Over the march in 1956 in w hich 20,000 wom en greeting as th ey cam e in.” T he house books on the women’s struggle, For 1968, she left the Communist party. next 40 years he recorded several al converged on the Union Buildings, the “shines brightly at us from one side of Their Triumphs and Their Tears, 1978; They moved from London to Hereford bums, the most recent a solo effort, seat of government in Pretoria, to demon the mirror; on the other are the homes the murdered activist, Steve Biko, No 46 shire in 1981 where guests enjoyed the Right Place to Start, in 2005. strate against the pass laws. And she was a and lives of our friends and comrades in - Steve Biko, 1978; and a series of inter conversation and the cuisine, though One o f his last public appearances, in founder and national secretary of the the [black] locations”. views on her countrymen and women’s non-smokers endured a ban on the weed July this year, was on the National Day Peaqe Council until it, too, was banned. Rusty was the sole accused in the experience in exile. Her n ovel Death is as unalterable as an edict from Pretoria. of the Cowboy in Scottsdale, Arizona. But there were ways to carry on the work 1964 Rivonia trial to be acquitted. Nel Part of the Process (1983) won the Sin They returned for a visit to South Africa in His services to W estern m usic w ere ac clandestinely, but when, in 1958, her writ son Mandela, Walter Sisulu and other clair prize and was made into a BBC 1994 to work for an ANC victory. knowledged in 2001 by a Country/West ing and magazine work was banned, it ANC leaders were jailed for life. He was They were living in Kidlington, near ern Living Legend Award. As the punc was a serious financial blow. immediately re-arrested, then surpris Oxford, when Rusty died. Soon after, tuation implies, the border between She had married Rusty, an architect, ingly bailed, giving the couple the op Mandela, on a visit to Britain, drove over Western music and mainstream country in 1941. He had drafted the Freedom tion of quitting a hopeless political to talk about old tim es. In 2003, Hilda music can be contested territory. Page Charter, the founding document of the stage. And yet the decision was agonis returned to South Africa and lived in a made it clear where he stood on the mat liberation struggle. But his ability to pay ing. As the police closed in, Hilda still flat in the Cape Town seaside suburb of ter. "You’re either country or you’re the bills for a grow ing fam ily w as like did the housewifely thing, and took the Sea Point, near her son Keith. western,” he told the Los Angeles wise hindered by political intrusions, clothes out of the washing machine and Last week her doctor told her there Times. “We sing about the Grand notably the four years, 1956-60, as a de then slipped out through a secret pas was not long to go. She phoned her chil Canyon, cows and girlfriends back fendant in the Treason Trial, and then sage in the back garden. They were dren in Europe to say goodbye. She is home. We don’t sing about the girl at the his and Hilda’s detention in the State of taken across the border into the then survivedby children, Toni, Patrick, corner bar. We don’t cry in our beer.” Emergency that followed the shootings British Bechuanaland and arrived in Frances and Keith, seven grandchildren He is survived by his daughter, Chris at Sharpeville in i960. England in their forties. and four great grandchildren. tine Hanson. And yet they managed. In her book Rusty worked as an architect, while Denis Herbstein Tony Russell The-World that was Ours (1967), she Hilda launched a career as a graphic recounts that their house in Observatory artist. She created book covers, and Hilda Bernstein, political activist, bom | Buck Page, musician, born June 181922; “breathed and murmured with people African National Congress and Anti May 1 5 1915; died September 9 2006 I died August 212006 Birthdays Other lives Announcements

Ray Alan, ventriloquist, 76; Frankie world of industrial hiring and firing, she Margaret’s ward in Lewisham. She Roma Morton-Williams DEATH NOTICES Avalon, singer, actor, 67; Sol Camp joined the Civil Service in 1950. combined local knowledge (she insti bell, footballer, 32; Jack C ardiff, Roma Morton-Williams, who has died She moved from personnel into the So gated fact-finding walkabouts) with RICE. John Michael, aged 74 years, died peacefully in Ringway Mews Nursing Home on September 12. A dearly cinematographer and director, 92; aged 82, was the epitome of a self-effac cial Survey division of the then Office of understanding of the interplay of local loved and loving husband of Elizabeth, devoted Father Peter Clarke, cartoonist, 69; Siobhan ing public servant. Active in local affairs Population Censuses and Surveys, where and national government. As vice chair of Clare, Peter, Anne, Katherine and David, Father-in-Law Davies, dancer and choreographer, 56; in south London, until her health failed, she remained until her retirement as its of Lewisham social services, she ex of Gary, Joanne, Cengiz and Simon. The proud and much Huw Edwards, newscaster, 45; Tara she combined an interest in other peo head in 1984. Roma’s high standards in tended her concern for the elderly and loved Grandad of Ellen, Sarah, James, Sophie, Noah and Natalie and caring brother of Dorothy and Frank. John Fitzgerald, actor, ; Jason Gardener, 39 ple with a wicked sense of humour, a design, quality control o f field work, and most vulnerable, and after her second w ill be g re a tly missed by his fa m ily and friends. Mass athlete, Olympic 2004 gold medallist, sharp intellect and the skills to turn analysis, together with her ability to oper “retirement” became the first chair of in celebration of his life at Christ Church, Heald Green 31; Darren Gough, cricketer, 36; Sir concern into effective action. ate with confidence as a woman at a se Carers Lewisham. on Wednesday, September 20 at 10am followed by com Thomas Hetherington, QC, former Roma was born in north Wales, the nior level, were highly valued. Roma was also connected with Cross m ittal at Altrincham Crematorium at 11.30am. No flow ers please, donations if desired to the Parkinson's Society. director of public prosecutions, 80; second of three children, whose vicar After retirement, she served for eight roads, which provides Support for carers, Enqs. and donations to Jonathan Alcock & Sons Ltd., Meredith Oakes, playwright, 60; Derek father died w h en she w as eight, and years as a Labour councillor for the St and Lewisham Pensioners’ Forum. She Brook House, Brook Road, Cheadle SK8 1PQ Tel. 0161 Pringle, former .cricketer, 48; whose teacher mother returned to had supported the Blackfriars Settlement 428 2097 Prof Christopher Ricks, scholar of work as a single parent. After boarding Roma Morton- since her civil service days, and helped at IN M EM O RIAM English, 73; Peter Shilton, former school, she read psychology at Bedford Williams was the its Sunday afternoon club for the young. footballer, 57; John Spencer, snooker College, University of London. She epitome of a Her personal values inform ed a life o f LAFFIN. Trevor John BA, 1927-2004. Much loved hus player, 71; John Stoddart, former prin joined the army in 1945 as an occupa self-effacing public passionate involvement in the commu band to Pat and dear father to Martin, Clare, Simon and Sian. Endeared by grandchildren, his sister Ruby and cipal and vice-chancellor, Sheffield tional psychologist, and three years servant. She also nity, which brought her much happiness his many friends. Hallam University, 68 ; Prof Dorothy later, promoted to major, left to work served as a and satisfaction. She is survived by her Wedderburn, economist and social sci in the personnel department of Labour councillor brother and sister for Announcements. Acknowledgements, Adoptions, Anniversaries, Birthdays, Births, Deaths, Engagements, Memorial Services and In Memoriams phone 020 en tist, 8l; Kieran West, rower, Olympic Hoover. Uncomfortable with the harsh Hazel Taylor 76119099 fax 020 7278 6046 or email advertlslng.copyfflguardlan.co.uk Includ 2000 gold medallist, 29. ing your name address and telephone number between 9.30am and 12pm Mon-Fri

NEWSPAPERDtRECT ro~rri iT‘? a~nT T p 'r o f OBITUARIES 47 nchester University versity Challenge

Hilda Bernstein

Holding a line of continuity in a fero cious period under apartheid required a quality of courage that does not fully emerge in Hugh Macmillan’s obituary of Hilda Bernstein [20 September], writes Paul Trewhela. While her hus band Rusty was on trial with Nelson Mandela in the Rivonia trial of1963-64, feeing a real possibility of being hanged, Hilda embraced the risk herself. Because of arrests and flights into exile, there were not enough people to carry out indispensable underground political functions. Duplication of roles - always dangerous - became a norm. Despite herself being under police surveillance, Hilda doubled up as an emissary of the central committee of the illegal Com munist Party and the High Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the military wing of the SACP and the African Na tional Congress), to set up and super vise production in Johannesburg of an underground journal for Umkhonto, Freedom Fighter, of which I was editor. The journal advocated military action against the South African regime, the matter for which Mandela, Rusty Bern stein and their trial colleagues faced the possibility of a death sentence. We lasted through three issues. One month after the end of the Rivonia trial - in which Rusty was acquitted - fur ther arrests put an end to the journal. Shortly afterwards, Hilda and Rusty were spirited out of the country. None of this appeared in her auto biographical account, The World That Was Ours, a too-romanticised evocation that appeared in Britain in 1967. Hilda was one of that generation of “Stalin's Jews” who played a m^jor role in the political transformation of South Africa The present government, which has presided over spectacular levels of corruption, crime and deaths from HIV/Aids, shares some of the moral Droblems from that inheritance. cenetit fli^Iy^Idren'), e/oPa* ha Tabernacle Salvation Army, PASSINGS Cahot £ Sons. I’asailcnii He served in the U.S. Office of 1964. Mandela received a sen BLACK, Nlavoum een Joice Armin H. Meyer,92; August 10,1930-Septcir.bcr2, War Information in Cairo during tence of life imprisonment; Funeral services were U.S. Ambassador, State World War U. Rusty Bernstein was the only de Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2006 at 2:00 al, Harrlson-Uoss Mortuaries, D epartm ent O fficial fendant who was acquitted. t i.nshiiw Blvd.. L.A., CA !H Hilda Bernstein, 91; Bernstein and her husband Interment, Inglewood Park Ci Annin H. Meyer, 92, who fled the country and eventually Fought Apartheid BLUMENTHA1, Norman served as U.S. ambassador to settled in Britain. They returned Born July 25, 1923 passed a Lebanon, Iran and Japan, died in South Africa to South Africa after democratic al his home on Sept. 12, 2006 was a devoted and loving husfc Aug. 13 of Parkinson’s disease at elections in 1994. father and grandfather. He is survived by his a hospital in Washington, D.C. Hilda Bernstein, 91, an anti daughters, Susan and ,!eni Blun He was deputy assistant sec apartheid activist and author I,hal and his grand daughter Brli Blumenthul-Cohen. A gentle retary of State for Near Eastern who was a founding member of who made the world a better p and South Asian affairs when the Federation of South African Kind and compassionate he l< helping others. President Kennedy named him Women, the first nonracial In lieu of flowers, please i donations to the Parkinsons F< ambassador to Lebanon in 1961. women’s organization in South dation or the Braille Institute. He spent four years in Beirut, fol Africa, died of heart failure Fri Services will be noon Th lowed by four in Tehran. day at her home in Cape Town, Sept. 14 at Mount Sinai Memoria In Tokyo, Meyer helped nego South Africa. (AR TO fT H t, Sharon (62) Of Chino Hills, a much It tiate the return of Okinawa to Bernstein, whose husband philanthropist, homemaker Japanese control and tried to was tried for treason along with devoted grandmother, died Sept ber 9, 2006 after a long and coi smooth relations with the Japa Nelson Mandela, was born in geous battle with cancer. Shi was active in CHOC (Childr nese when it was announced in London in 1915 and emigrated to Hospital of Orange County) 1971 that President Nixon would South Africa in 1932, working in Ebell Club of Anaheim Hills, and her husband were involve visit China. advertising, publishing and jour many charity groups and educati After leaving Tokyo in 1972, he nalism. a I programs. The Memorial Service is Frii spent a year heading a Cabinet A fiery orator, she served as a September 15th, al 10:00 a.m Canyon Hills Presbyterian Gilt: committee to combat terrorism. city councilor in Johannesburg in Anaheim Hills. Nixon launched the committee from 1943 to 1946 as the only Sharon is survived by her h band Glenn, daughter Christine, after the killing of 11 Israeli ath communist elected to public of Scott and two grandchildren A1 letes at the 1972 Olympics in Mu fice in a whites-only vote. thew Glenn and Ryan Jacob C nich, Germany. She and her husband were ac penter.______FLORES, Francisco Meyer was bom Jan. 19, 1914, tive in the early days of the South Bennie Smith www.gucrrnRuUerrcz.com in Fort Wayne, Ind. He received African Communist Party and (323) 722-1300______an associate’s degree from Lin the African National Congress. Bennie Smith, a St. Louis- FUJIOKA, Anson Tadao coln College in Illinois in 1933, a They both suffered banning and based blues musician who (92) Resident of Los Ange passed away on September 9, 2( bachelor’s degree from Capital detention by the apartheid state. played with such stars as Chuck Beloved husband of Marga University in Columbus, Ohio, in Bernstein’s husband, Rusty, Berry and Ike and Tina Turner, Fujioka and brother-in-law of I_.il Fujioka and John and Willi 1935, and a master’s degree in and Mandela were tried with died Sunday after a heart attack (Mickey) Yamaguchi; also sunn' other anti-apartheid activists in there. He was 72. by many nieces, nephews and ol mathematics from Ohio State relatives. University in 1941. the infamous Rivonia Trial in From Times Staff and Wire Reports Graveside Funeral Service, 1' day, September 15. 10:30 a.m.. Green Hills Memorial Park. 27; S. W estern Ave„ Rancho Pa Verdes. CA. with Rev. Slev THE INDEPENDENT WEDNESDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2006

Vietnam joins United Nations 1 9 7 7 A year on from the official reunification of North and South, Vietnam was admitted TUESDAY 20 SEPTEMBER as the 149th member of the United Nations, after the US dropped its opposition

Rhodesia, where they were declared prohibited immigrants by the outgo ing British colonial government, in The World That Was Ours (1967). HIT DA BERNSTEIN Her sensitivity to the issues sur rounding political exile, separation and loss, were shown in her two most orig inal books, A Life of One’s Own (2002) Anti-apartheid campaigner in which she examined the lives of her father and of an elder sister who had travelled to the Soviet Union and was ilda Bernstein was a When Hilda was 10 he responded to an compelled to remain there through the woman of many talents order from the Soviet Communist Party privations of the Second World War, who devoted most of her to return to Russia to help build the and The Rift: the exile experience of long life to the promotion revolution. Hilda never saw him again South Africans (1994). of equality for all South - he died there from typhoid seven The latter was an anthology based HAfricans regardless of years later. on more than 300 interviews with ex race, colour, or gender. Small, attrac Her mother never understood how iled South Africans which she began tive and feisty, she was one of the few he could have put politics before fam to conduct in 1989 at a time when the survivors from among the leaders of the ily, but 40 years later Hilda was her return from exile did not appear im legal Communist, Party of South Africa self, with her husband and political minent. The majority of the interviews 'WBF .aaisiSll (CPSA), which was banned in 1950. partner, Lionel "Rusty” Bernstein, were with members of the African Na Bernstein: the problems of exile As Hilda Watts she was the first, and whom she had married in 1941, to face tional Congress and its affiliates, but only, member of that Party to be elect the same dilemma. She had moved to it is not a partisan work and draws on like the children of many activists, had ed to public office by members of an South Africa with her mother in 1933, the experience of exiles of widely dif little cause to resent their parents’ all-white constituency or ward. She and had progressed politically through fering political persuasions, including political activities. shared the view of her comrades that the membership of the white Labour the hit-squad commander Dirk Coet- Hilda Bernstein’s other publications her election to the Johannesburg City Parly to the non-racial CPSA in 1940. zee and the politically unaligned actor included For Their Triumphs and For Council in 1943 was a bit of a fluke - a Hilda Bernstein’s most important Anthony Sher. It remains her most Their Tears (1975), a study of women product of the wartime popularity of political work inside South Africa re substantial publication and the only under apartheid, and Death is Part of the Soviet Union and of local politics. lated to the establishment of the non- serious treatment of an important, the Process (1983), a prize-winning novel She was in 1945 one of two women elect racial Federation of South African but neglected, subject. based on the early days of the ANC’s ed to the central committee of the CPSA Women in 1954 - she drafted the She was equally alive to the prob armed struggle which became a two- - the other was the late Ray Alexan “Women’s Charter”. With her husband lems of exile, which she saw as “a de part BBC television film (1986). der, with whom she worked closely in she was also deeply involved in the or sertion”, and to the problems of return She began work as an artist in 1972 the establishment of the Federation of ganisation of the Congress of the to South Africa by people who had been and her etchings, drawings and paint South African Women. People in 1955 - Rusty was the main compelled to become “citizens of the ings were exhibited at the Royal Acade During almost 40 years in exile in draftsman of the Freedom Charter. world”. She returned to South Africa my and featured in many one-man London and Oxford, she worked tire- She had been charged in connection with her husband for the installation and group exhibitions in the United with the black mineworkers’ strike in of President Nelson Mandela in 1994, Kingdom and South Africa. and the Anti-Apartheid Movement as 1946 and was banned from trade union but she did not return to live in the Hugh Macmillan an organiser, lecturer and writer. work in 1953. She was also detained country until after Rusty’s death in2002. Born in London in 1915, she was one during the state of emergency in 1960. They had not enjoyed exile in a coun Hilda Watts, political activist, writer and of the three daughters of Samuel and She described her husband’s, and her try that Hilda always found cold - both artist: born London 15 April 1915; mar Dora Watts, who were both Russian own, experience of the Rivonia trial, climatically and emotionally - but they ried1941 LionelBernstein (died2002;two Jewish immigrants. Her father, a Bol and their dram atic flight into exile had enjoyed a model political marriage sons, two daughters); died Cape Town shevik, was born Simeon Schwarz. through Bechuan aland and Northern and had brought up children who, un- 8 September2006. The Guardian | Monday September 18 2006 Obituaries

Hilda Bernstein Buck Page Activist and author, she fought against Founder of the Riders apartheid in South of the Purple Sage Africa and in exile roups dedicated to the songs of the Old West have found them selves 1 “ I he partnership of Hilda many appropriate 1 1 Bernstein, who has died names, the Sons of the in Cape Town aged 91, Pioneers, th e Ranch and her husband, Lionel Boys, Riders In The Sky, “Rusty” Bernstein (obitu b ut none more evoca ary, June 26 2002), fea tive than the Riders of the Purple Sage. tured long and endur- Buck Page, th e group’s founder, who has __ ingly in the struggle Gdied aged 84, took th e nam e from a book against apartheid, both in South Africa by the prolific Western writer Zane Grey. and in their English exile. Perhaps Hilda’s How well he chose is borne out by the most unprecedented accomplishment fact that a rival group borrowed it, and was to persuade white voters to elect more than a generation later a country her, a communist, to the Johannesburg rock band called themselves the New city council. But that was 1943, before Riders of the Purple Sage. Hilda and communism were red-carded Page conceived the idea of the group by the Afrikaner nationalist referee. in 1936, w hen, barely in his teens, he led Hilda Bernstein was an all-rounder - a quartet playing cowboy songs on radio she could “talk the talk” (through her station KDKA in his home town of Pitts books and rousing oratory) and “walk burgh, Pennsylvania. At the time such the walk” (she was a founder, in 1956, of groups were usually stringband forma the non-racial Federation of South tions of fiddles, banjos and guitars, fol African Women; and had a conviction, in lowing the example of popular troupes 1946, for involvem ent in a black such as Otto Gray’s Oklahoma Cowboys. mineworkers’ strike). But alongside her Page, who played many instruments, feminism was a devotion to her home among them, fiddle, banjo and guitar, and her four children. A colleague at the augmented the line-up with an accor Johannesburg publishers where Hilda dion to “fill up the sound”. edited a family magazine, recalls her After three years, the band moved to rushing hom e early to make naartjie New York to broadcast over WOR and play (mandarin) marmalade. regularly at the Village Bam, in Greenwich Hilda Watts grew up in London’s East Village, opened by Meyer Horowitz in End, the daughter of Jewish Russian em 1930, that presented downhome country igrants. Her father, Simeon Schwarz was music to uptown sophisticates. When the a Bolshevik and was m ade th e Soviet United States entered the second world trade attache in London in 1919, b u t was war, Page served in the US Navy. recalled to Moscow in 1925, never to Then, in 1943, Foy Willing, a singer return. His widow, Dora, emigrated to working on the west coast, redeployed Johannesburg with Hilda, the youngest their name. His Riders of the Purple Sage of th e three daughters, in 1932. Hilda had better luck with the title, both on was quickly active in th e youth branch records and in Western movies. Eventu of the Labour party, but in 1940 joined ally Page found out about his Californian th e Com m unist party. A fine public rival, but, according to his manager, Gary speaker with an exceptional organisa Bright, he and Willing became friends. tional ability, she was elected to the Besides, Willing retired his Riders in 1952. council by the voters of Hillbrow, the About that timePagpHimadLm^ed most (or only) avant garde of the sub to th e west coast, w h ere he w o rk ed as a urbs, and certainly helped by South studio musician, as well as for TV shows Africa being an aliy of Moscow. But it such as Tales of Wells Fargo, Wagon gave her a further insight into the woe Bernstein’s family emigrated to Johannesburg in 1932, where she joined the Communist party and became a local councillor. Train and Laramie. His guitar playing ful plight of urban Africans, particularly She and her husband Rusty, below, with Mandela, returned to South Africa in order to work for an ANC victory in 1994 was featured in th e them e music for Bo th e migrant gold m iners. nanza and 77 Sunset Trip. He also took Throughout the 1950s, Hilda worked and sound - people coming to swim, to apartheid Movement posters and greet drama. Those who heard her at meetings acting roles in movies as varied as tirelessly to better the condition of African talk, to borrow books, the children’s ing cards, and combined that with w ere left in no doubt about th e serious Destry Rides Again, Spartacus and A Star women, despite being banned from 28 or friends of all ages; people who never sh o w so f her etchings around the world. ness of events in South Africa. After the is Born. In th e early 1960s he re-formed ganisations. She helped organise the rang th e bell or knocked, but called a She also chronicled the big story with Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, in the Riders of th e Purple Sage. Over the march in 1956 in which 20,000 women greeting as they came in.” The house books on the women’s struggle, For 1968, she left the Communist party. next 40 years he recorded several al converged on the Union Buildings, the “shines brightly at us from one side of Their Triumphs and Their Tears, 1978; They moved from London to Hereford bums, the most recent a solo effort, seat of government in Pretoria, to demon the mirror; on the other are the homes the murdered activist, Steve Biko, No 46 shire in 1981 where guests enjoyed the Right Place to Start, in 2005. strate against the pass laws. And she was a and lives of our friends and comrades in - Steve Biko, 1978; and a series of inter conversation and the cuisine, though One of his last public appearances, in founder and national secretary of the the [black] locations”. views on her countrym en and w om en’s non-smokers endured a ban on the weed July this year, was on the National Day Peace Council until it, too, was banned. Rusty was th e sole accused in the experience in exile. Her novel Death is as unalterable as an edict from Pretoria. of the Cowboy in Scottsdale, Arizona. But there were ways to carry on the work 1964 Rivonia trial to be acquitted. Nel Part of the Process (1983) won the Sin They returned for a visit to South Africa in His services to Western music were ac clandestinely, but w hen, in 1958, her writ son Mandela, Walter Sisulu and other clair prize and was made into a BBC 1994 to work for an ANC victory. knowledged in 2001 by a Country/West ing and magazine work was banned, it ANC leaders were jailed for life. He was They were living in Kidlington, near ern Living Legend Award. As the punc was a serious financial blow. immediately re-arrested, then surpris Oxford, when Rusty died. Soon after, tuation implies, the border between She had married Rusty, an architect, ingly bailed, giving the couple the op Mandela, on a visit to Britain, drove over Western music and mainstream country in 1941. He had drafted th e Freedom tion of quitting a hopeless political to talk about old times. In 2003, Hilda music can be contested territory. Page Charter, the founding document of the stage. And yet the decision was agonis returned to South Africa and lived in a m ade it clear w here he stood on th e m at liberation struggle. But his ability to pay ing. As the police closed in, Hilda still flat in th e Cape Town seaside suburb of ter. “You’re either country or you’re the bills for a growing family was like did the housewifely thing, and took the Sea Point, near her son Keith. western,” he told the Los Angeles wise hindered by political intrusions, clothes out of the washing machine and Last week her doctor told her there Times. “We sing about th e Grand notably the four years, 1956-60, as a de then slipped out through a secret pas was not long to go. She phoned her chil Canyon, cows and girlfriends back fendant in th e Treason Trial, and then sage in the back garden. They were dren in Europe to say goodbye. She is hom e. We don’t sing about the girl at the his and Hilda’s detention in the State of taken across the border into the then survived by children, Toni, Patrick, ' corner bar. We don’t cry in our beer.” Emergency that followed the shootings British Bechuanaland and arrived in Frances and Keith, seven grandchildren He is survived by his daughter, Chris at Sharpeville in i 960. England in their forties. and four great grandchildren. tine Hanson. And yet they managed. In her book Rusty w orked as an architect, while Denis Herbstein Tony Russell The World th at was Ours (1967), she Hilda launched a career as a graphic recounts that their house in Observatory artist. She created book covers, and Hilda Bernstein, political activist, born Buck Page, musician, born June 181922; “breathed and m urm ured w ith people African National Congress and Anti May 1 5 1915; died September 9 2006 died August 212006 14-SEP-2005 16=25 FROM 2 TD 20216891082 P .02/03 ©

5V $ c fjork (Eimcs Hilda Bernstein, 91, Author and Anti- Apartheid Activist, Dies

JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 12 — Hilda Bernstein, an anti-apartheid activist and author whose husband was tried for treason in South Africa alongside Nelson Mandela, died Friday at her home in Cape Town. She was 91.

The cause was heart failure, her son Keith said.

Ms. Bernsteins husband, Rusty, and Mr. Mandela were tried along with other anti-apartheid activists in the Rivonia Trial in 1964. Mr. Mandela received a life sentence, while Mr. Bernstein was the only defendant acquitted and freed.

But police harassment made life so difficult for the Bernsteins, a white couple, that they were forced into exile, leaving their children behind. They crossed the border into Botswana on foot — a journey described in Hilda Bernstein’s book “"The World That Was Ours.”

In exile, Ms. Bernstein was an active member of the African National Congress and a regular speaker for the Anti-Apartheid Movement organization in Britain and abroad.

The couple eventually settled in Britain, but returned to South Africa after the 1994 democratic elections, which made Mr. Mandela president.

Ms. Bernstein was a founding member of the Federation of South African Women, the first multiracial women’s organization in South Africa. She was also an artist, and her work has been used as book

I 14-SEP-2005 16=25 FROM 2 TO 202158910B2 P .03/03 (2 )

jackets and illustrations, posters and cards for the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

Ms. Bernstein was bom in London in 1915 and emigrated to South Africa in 1932, working in advertising, publishing and journalism.

A fiery orator, she served as a city councilor in Johannesburg from 1943 to 1946 as the only Communist elected to public office in a “whites only” vote.

She and her husband were active in the early days of the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress. Rusty Bernstein died in 2002.

She is survived by four children, seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

TOTAL P .03

Collection Number: A3299 Collection Name: Hilda and Rusty BERNSTEIN Papers, 1931-2006

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