From South Africa to Egypt to Tobruk and POW

As a Jewish South African, my father felt it was his duty to go and fight the Nazis. He voluntarily enlisted in the South African army, which fought alongside the Allies. He was in the 2nd Division of the South African army, trained as a gunner, and then became a radio operator, using Morse code. He was sent to Egypt and from there to Tobruk in Libya. He was captured at Tobruk along with thousands of British, South African, and other Allied troops. He told me that not a single shot was fired, although the South African soldiers were rearing to fight.

The Germans, under Rommel, handed the prisoners over to the Italians, who were part of the Nazi Axis. My father was in three different prisoner of war camps in Italy. Although they were starving (kept alive by parcels from the Red Cross) and had to work hard, he loved the Italians. He said they were always singing, and the beautiful Italian women came to the fence with carts of food and sang to them, with such pity in their eyes. He told us that they hated Mussolini and fascism, and when Mussolini capitulated, the Italian guards were celebrating and called on the prisoners to come with them, and they would get them back to their frontline. Some of the prisoners did, and their story is told by the South African author Uys Krige in his wonderful book, *The Way Out*.

However, the South African commander of the camp told the prisoners that if they left, they would be considered traitors, so my father remained. The Nazis moved in and transported them all to Nazi Germany, where his experience was very different. My father was in a POW camp in Lützen near Leipzig and saw the bombing of Dresden. He was then moved to a work camp and worked as one of the millions of slaves of the Nazis in a sugar beet factory. With almost no food, they were starving and working extremely long hours. One day, my father refused to go to work with no food and was thrown into a dungeon for nine days, where all he could hear was the dripping of water, and the Nazi guard marching up and down in his jackboots, firing his rifle from time to time and threatening to kill my father. When he came out, he had a nervous breakdown as a result of his experiences and was treated in hospital by a fellow prisoner.

He was later exchanged for a German POW and returned to South Africa, where he encountered an Afrikaner nationalist shouting, "I'm a Nazi and I'm proud of it." My father "went for him" and was arrested and spent the night in prison. My father had seen the worst of humanity, yet never lost faith in human beings and their goodness. He spent the rest of his life standing up for justice, against fascism, discrimination, and hatred, no matter how big or small the issue.