GREETINGS FROM LAURE JOYCE –Counsellor political SA Embassy Berlin 30.11.2021
WELCOMING WORD BY LAURA JOYCE (COUNSELLOR POLITICAL)
I am deeply honoured to represent the South African Embassy at the event, entitled “Jewish Refugees from Germany in Apartheid South Africa”. I am all the more honoured to find myself in the presence of what, in Jewish parlance, would be a “Mensch”, in the person of Mrs Ruth Weiss.
My understanding of this term for the Jewish people is that it is someone who identifies with the wellbeing of his or her fellow human being to such an extent that he or she would go to extreme lengths to make the other person’s life bearable.
To paraphrase Nadine Gordimer’s foreword in Mrs Weiss’ memoirs, “A Path Through Hard Grass”: Mrs Weiss’s life was shaped by two of the most distinguishing events of the twentieth century, namely fascism and racism in Europe, and racism in South Africa.
Her family escaped the unspeakable horrors of Nazism and the Second World War in Germany when her father lost his job in 1933 and subsequently moved his family to South Africa. Little had she known that she would encounter racism and prejudice in the form of Apartheid in her adopted country towards the majority of the citizens of South Africa.
Whilst Ruth could easily have decided to remain aloof from the struggle against racial injustice, as so many did, she chose, as a white woman and a European, to listen and learn from the black people.
It put her on a path, no, a quest, for tolerance and understanding of different cultures. She studied the cultures, thoughts and worldview of the African people. As she said herself, “whilst one never sheds one’s cultural vest donned at birth, it should never stop you [from] learning about and accepting other cultures”.
For her it became a way of life. Ruth Weiss not only sought to understand Africa, she also fought actively against Apartheid. Ruth’s choice to become engaged in the trials and tribulations of the majority of citizens of South Africa did not necessarily find favour within the entire Jewish community, but she persevered. Her activism against Apartheid resulted in her leaving the country in 1966, her name having been blacklisted, which meant that she could not speak in public or attend public gatherings. This banning of her freedom of speech was only lifted in 1991 after the epoch-making speech in the South African parliament by the recently deceased former President F.W. de Klerk and the release of political prisoners in South Africa, including Mr Nelson Mandela. Just think: Ruth remained a blacklisted person for 25 years!
Ruth was part of a group of Jews who fought against Apartheid. Many of them had their roots in Eastern Europe and had come to South Africa as a result of racial hatred in their lands of origin. Ronnie Kasrils (one of the most well-known Jews who had fought against apartheid and whose grandparents had fled the Tsarist pogroms in Latvia/Lithuania at the turn of the 19th century and settled in South Africa) once told a colleague of mine: “The history of the Jews has instilled in us a visceral reaction against injustice. That is the reason for the disproportionate number of Jews in the anti-apartheid struggle.” Joe Slovo, another prominent anti-apartheid figure, also escaped a pogrom in Lithuania with his parents, who then came to South Africa. And a Jewess, Helen Suzman, was the only Member of the South African Parliament to consistently and unequivocally oppose all apartheid legislation for 13 years!
In keeping with her Jewish roots, Ruth Weiss takes seriously the dictum: “Lest we forget.” Or, as the Tora often enjoins the Israelites of old: “Tell your children and their children”. This is exactly what the Jewish people still do every year at Passover when they relate to small children the story of the Exodus from Egypt.
And Ruth Weiss is pursuing that path with her interest in educating the youth about discrimination, anti-semitism, the dangers of nationalism and Apartheid. She follows in the Jewish tradition to transmit to the young the history that shaped the world, and its people, as we know it today. It is my understanding that Ruth’s books are on a reading list of many German schools and that a school was also named after her.
As Nadine Gordimer also said about Ruth Weiss: “Africanness is not only a matter of skin; it’s a matter of heart and human commitment, and she has both”. Not pretending to outdo a Nobel Literature Prize winner, I submit that Ruth’s life is more than that. Her life has been, and still is, a testimony to what the Germans call “Menschlichkeit”.
Mrs Weiss once said about the fact that her family left Germany in 1933, just in time to escape the catastrophy that followed: “We were the lucky ones”. No, Mrs Weiss, WE were the lucky ones to have had you in South Africa!
At the Yad Vashem Museum in Tel Aviv, there is an orchard of trees planted in honour of many non-Jewish “Menschen” who made great sacrifices to Jewish people during the Holocaust.
In actual fact, in line with the theme for this evening, Ruth has been a refugee twice: first, when her family were forced to go to South Africa, and the second time when she left South Africa. SHE deserves a special tree in South Africa!
I thank you.