Letters of Stone. From Nazi Germany to Alluding to the project of a German artist, South Africa. who has embedded “stumbling stones” Steven Robins. that are inscribed with the names of Cape Town: Penguin, 2016. 314 pp. Holocaust victims into the pavement of ISBN 978 1 77609 024 2. many German towns and cities, Robins DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/tvl.v.54i1.18 grasped the opportunity of using these “letters of stone” to uncover and preserve In this moving book the author takes the memory of his German relatives. the reader on a captivating but painful Much of the book consists of extensive journey of discovery through the history citations from these eyewitness accounts of his own family. Steven Robins, a of the ever-increasing discrimination and social anthropologist at Stellenbosch persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany. University, describes his childhood in a The women in the photograph—the Jewish South African home within the book contains a considerable number familiar coordinates of a comfortable of family pictures—turned out to be the white middle class existence in the author’s grandmother and aunts who 1960s and 1970s. At an age when he perished in Auschwitz. became progressively aware of the gross It is well known that Holocaust injustices of apartheid he began to ask survivors, or those who were lucky questions about his father’s upbringing enough to escape before they were in post-World War I Germany. Initially, sucked into the Nazi extermination the curiosity of the author was incited industry, often suppressed their trauma by an old photograph of three sombre- in silence. As the author is able to attest, looking women in the family dining even the descendants of the survivors room that was never explained or spoken have to battle with the repercussions about. Herbert Robins was a refugee of blocked memories, especially when from Nazi Germany who had washed children become exposed to symptoms up on the shores of South Africa in 1936. of psychological trauma and erratic He steadfastly refused to talk about his behaviour of their parents. The author previous life and refrained from speaking openly describes his own feelings of about the fate of his parents, siblings dread and helplessness that frequently and other family members that he had overcame him at various stages of the to leave behind in Germany. The chance exploration of his family history. The discovery of a stack of letters in the Cape letters provide ample evidence of the Town flat of relatives after the death of humiliating circumstances that the Nazi his father became a turning point for bureaucracy created for Jews in Germany, the author. With the help of friends and whose impact was designed to destroy colleagues Robins began the difficult the spirit of people who were gradually task of deciphering and translating pushed into the abyss of the Holocaust. these letters from German into English. The writers of these letters had, of course, 258 TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE • 54 (1) • 2017 every reason to express their anguish in Fischer, the author of an anthropological ways that would not provoke the wrath study of the Rehoboth Basters in German of the censors. Superficially cheerful South West Africa, who became a leading assurances of being able to cope must be academic under the Nazis. Robins is also read as transparent attempts to comfort inspired by Hannah Arendt’s quest for the Herbert in South Africa, who can only links between colonialism and European have agonised over the fate of his loved authoritarianism that she discussed in ones. The letters often revolve around the her book The Origins of Totalitarianism frantic attempts made to leave Germany. (1951). This attests to the intellectual Unsurprisingly, they increasingly integrity of the author as he makes an resounded with despair in the face of the effort in discussing the sinister aspects unwillingness of foreign countries, such as of the involvement of his own discipline South Africa from the late 1930s, to throw in endorsing racist stereotypes that were out a life line to Jews. Herbert had been meant to justify white supremacy. As lucky to enter his new country before the the general style of the book seems to immigration laws were tightened. indicate, however, these sections provide As Robins points out, it is impossible relevant background information more to read these letters without a sense of for the benefit of the non-specialist than foreboding. The guarded references to of scholarly readers. It is an ambitious the increasing economic hardship and undertaking to address the complexity social ostracisation experienced by Jews of the debates about the ideological and merely hint at the gruesome reality intellectual connections between German in Nazi Germany. With the hindsight National Socialism and South African granted to present-day readers, we know racism and apartheid within the scope the fate that awaited these men and of a biographical study. It should also be women as an elongated and agonising noted that some inaccuracies seem to have social death reached its culmination in slipped through the proofreading process. systematic mass murder. The South African maverick politician, In describing his journeys to Germany, Oswald Pirow, was not the founder of the Poland, Israel and the United States of right-wing Ossewa Brandwag as claimed by America in the course of his research, the author (102), and the famous German Robins is not merely concerned with writer Heinrich Mann, the brother of the uncovering the hidden history of his even more famous Thomas Mann, was father’s family. Interwoven with the story not Jewish as a fleeting remark appears of his search for more information are to indicate (182). chapters that discuss relevant trends in the These critical comments are not meant, history of scientific racism, trying to show however, to distract from the author’s connections between colonialism and achievement. This book succeeds in later developments in Nazi Germany. A salvaging previously hidden historical prominent figure in this narrative is Eugen memory from the catastrophe of the TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE • 54 (1) • 2017 259 mass murder of the Jews in Europe. As emphasised by Robins, the book also may make readers pause to think about the awful circumstances currently faced by hundreds of thousands of refugees hoping to reach safe havens in the West and elsewhere despite rising xenophobia and prejudice in host countries. Tilman Dedering [email protected] University of South Africa Pretoria 260 TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE • 54 (1) • 2017 A Necklace of Springbok Ears. /Xam (1956), Erasmus Smit se dagboeke (1815), Orality and South African Literature. Leipoldt se Polfyntjies vir die proe (1963) en Helize van Vuuren. “Die Uintjie-Eters” (2006) deur Barend J. Stellenbosch: SUN PRESS, 2016. 227 pp. Toerien kan lei tot nuwe plantkundige, ISBN 978‐1‐920689‐89‐6; historiese, kulinêre en kulturele kennis. ISBN 978‐1‐920689‐90‐2 (e-boek). Die kontekstualisering van die orale DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/tvl.v.54i1.19 “teks” wat deur middel van Van Vuuren se vergelykende benadering plaasvind, Helize van Vuuren is sedert 1993 besig is veral belangrik omdat, soos Van met navorsing oor narratiewe, mites Vuuren aanvoer, daar in die geval en poësie in die verskeie /Xam- en van ’n orale werk nie sprake van ’n ander Boesmantale. Dié navorsing is “oorspronklike teks” is nie—elke keer saamgebundel in A Necklace of Springbok wanneer ’n verhaal of lied voorgedra Ears. Drie van die boek se agt hoofstukke word, kan dit verander. Die opgetekende is nog nie voorheen gepubliseer nie. Twee weergawes van /Xam verhale en liedere van hierdie “nuwe” hoofstukke handel oor wat vandag aan lesers beskikbaar is, die lewe en werk van G. R. von Wielligh is slegs spesifieke weergawes wat in (1859–1932). Von Wielligh—prosaïs en ook ongewone omstandighede aan skrywers vertaler van Robinson Crusoe in Afrikaans— en navorsers oorgedra is. Die optekenings het Boesman-, Khoi- en Swaziverhale is naamlik in die laat neëntiende en opgeteken soos wat hulle aan hom vertel vroeë twintigste eeu gedoen, toe die is. Von Wielligh word soms deur kritici meeste Boesmantale, -gemeenskappe en daarvan beskuldig dat hy Bleek en Lloyd -leefwyses reeds uitgesterf het. se meer bekende /Xam-argief geplagieer Van Vuuren se ondersoek na het. Sy werk word ook afgemaak as van die omstandighede waarin hierdie min historiese belang. Van Vuuren dui optekenings plaasgevind het, en die egter oortuigend aan dat Von Wielligh se bemiddeling en vertaling wat daarmee werk geskakel kan word met die Lloyd en saamgegaan het, lewer ’n belangrike Bleek-argief sowel as Afrikaanse literêre bydra tot die ondersoek van orale werk deur, onder meer, Jan F. E. Celliers, literatuur in Suid-Afrika. Ook hier is C. Louis Leipoldt en Eugène N. Marais. haar fokus op Von Wielligh se werk In die hoofstuk “A spring song to vernuwend. In Die sterre sê ‘Tsau’ beweer the uintjieblom” illustreer Van Vuuren Antjie Krog dat dit dikwels uit (veral die die waarde van ’n interdissiplinêre sintaksis van) die Bleek en Lloyd-argief vergelykende benadering verder, wanneer duidelik is dat die gesprekke oorspronklik sy toon dat ’n vergelyking van “A song in ’n mengsel van /Xam-tale en Afrikaans sung by the star !Gaunu, and especially plaasgevind het en deur die Duitse by Bushman women” (soos in 1875 deur Bleek en Lloyd in Engels neergeskryf Dia!kwain oorgedra aan Lucy Lloyd), is. Daarteenoor is Von Wielligh se werk Dorothea Bleek se Bushman Dictionary neergeskryf in die Afrikaans van sy 260 TYDSKRIF VIR LETTERKUNDE • 54 (1) • 2017 informante en het die verhale en poësie lewensverhale in verband bring met die dus ’n nuanse en onmiddellikheid wat verbannings- en gevangenismotiewe in soms in Bleek en Lloyd se argief ontbreek.