It would have been unthinkable to turn our backs on every human belief
GRAMPA BASIL’S cousin Bernard Gosschalk spoke about his motivation – along with his first wife Ruth Fine – for joining the Congress of Democrats (COD), the “white miniwing” of the ANC in the late 1950s:
To maintain separation, South Africans went to different schools. Buses, beaches, telephone booths, post offices – nothing was sacrosanct, nothing avoided apartheid… The cost in human life through malnutrition, disease, the military, is incalculable. Albert Luthuli, a Nobel Prize winner for Peace, Mandela’s predecessor; Mandela himself – neither possessed any rights – no vote, no settled abode, no right to be with their wives and children. For us to stand aside and join a gang which had turned its back on every human belief would have been unthinkable.
Understandably, our parents did not favour our chosen course of action. No parent likes to see their children’s name in the newspapers… I suppose we got involved for different reasons.
We were both members of the Congress of Democrats. Later I became its Cape Town secretary as previous ones were “collected” for detention, treason and trial, lasting four years – to emerge innocent but broken economically – forced to flee SA, and in some cases go underground, in a way the most difficult decision of all.
It was also at this time that Grampa’s cousin, Bernard Gosschalk was detained without the benefit of a trial.
Earlier he had been listed as a “communist” and restricted in his attendance on “gatherings”. Giving reasons for his earlier harassment, the then Minister of Justice “Blackie” Swart addressed a letter to lawyers, Frank, Bernadt and Joffee as follows (July30, 1959): Gentlemen, NOTICE IN TERMS OF SECTION 9(1) OF ACT NO 44 OF 1950: MR BERNARD LOUIS GOSSCHALK
With further reference to your letter of the 16th June, 1959, I am directed by the honourable the Minister of Justice to advise you as follows: 1 Reasons: (a) During the period April 1955, to March, 1959, your client took the active part in agitation and propaganda:
(i) which incited the non-Europeans to resist the laws and authority of the state;
(ii) which impressed upon them that they are oppressed and have to fight for their freedom;
(iii) which accused the police of tyranny and injustice towards the non-Europeans;
(iv) which encouraged the non-Europeans to join trade unions; and
(v) which incited members of trade unions and other workers’ organisations to strike.
(b) This agitation and propaganda is similar to that advocated by known Communist leaders, such as Lenin and others, and may, therefore further the achievement of certain objects of communism.
It might have been comical had it not been for the tragic events that followed in the decades ahead. Bernard received a foretaste when he was detained without trial for 180 days at the beginning of 1966. Many years later he wrote:
“I have likened solitary confinement to being stuck in a hermetically sealed thermos flask. One is contained in cell, without any human contact, bored beyond tears, 24 hours each day.
“Every day, one scratches another line on the wall, one’s calendar of slowly passing time. Nothing happens. Psychologically, the weekend is worse than the week. There is no logic in this except that one’s own weekly time-clock is still ticking slowly. One has to measure something – days, weeks, months, the shadow of the sun as it rises and falls over the weeks. Without measurement we are reduced to the level of a zombie…
“Each night I sleep on the bloodstained blanket on the coir mattress on the floor. “Sleep” is virtually impossible. Prison means noise, 24-hour noise. Screams, thuds of heads against concrete walls. The endless coming and going of police pick-up trucks.”
Meanwhile, a pitched battle was being conducted in court to have Bernard at least appear in court, a battle waged by some of the finest barristers in the land, including Harry Snitcher QC and Michael Richman.
By the time he went home, five months had passed and his young children hardly recognised him.