It was to be Pretoria Prison, ‘New European Section’ – the special prison for politicals. We thanked our stars they were not taking us to Pretoria Central; we couldn’t face another bout of solitary. And we had a prison to get out of.
When they opened the back of that prison van and we dismounted, uncrinkling ourselves from being cooped up in that damp, icy cage, we immediately felt that something was strange, at least as far as our limited prison experience could inform us. At Pollsmoor most boarding and alighting of prison vehicles had been done inside the prison, behind massive steel doors. Now we didn’t appear to be in a prison at all. We were standing in a street exposed to all the world and in front of us stood a building that did not look very much like a prison at all. True, there was a high wall to our left but in front of us was a door, a varnished wooden door, which would not have looked out of place on any suburban home. There were no barred windows or other signs that the building we were about to enter was a prison.
Two warders received us in the street. The chains were unshackled and thrown back into the compartment out of which we’d just emerged. The sunshine felt marvellous on our frozen bodies and pale faces. They led us through the front door of the building, which wasn’t even locked, but once inside we could see that indeed it was a prison. In front of us was a long passage with a great number of metal grilles across it. The first magically opened by itself; it was electrically operated – another new experience. We passed through several more grilles and finally into a small room near the end of the passage.
In the room a Lieutenant introduced himself and asked us to sign our names in the register. He took our details and in return assigned us our prison numbers, which were to be used in all official and other communications he explained. My number was to be 393/78; Stephen’s 394/78.
The atmosphere was relaxed and almost welcoming after Pollsmoor and the nightmare journey from Cape Town. There were no queues of black prisoners waiting to be signed in, no shouting and swearing, no rude warders rushing to and fro and no rattling of keys. It almost felt homely, quite unlike what we had expected.
The warders standing around eyed us up and down with curiosity, as if they’d never seen any prisoners before. It was seldom that any new prisoners were admitted to that prison and all who were came for a long stay.
They asked us what size shoes and clothes we wore. Stephen and I looked at each other in disbelief. At Pollsmoor there was no asking. What seemed the right size to them was just thrown at you and you had to fit the item rather than the other way around. A warder brought our clobber from the store and deposited two neat piles of clothing on the table in front of us. We discarded the badly fitting Pollsmoor ‘uniform’ for what appeared to be a much cleaner, newer and better fitting outfit. Someone scooped up the stinking Pollsmoor rags from the floor, put them in a bag and was told to take them out to the waiting van. We dressed in our new rig, thinking to each other that this, dear friend, is how we are going to look for the next so many years. Get used to it!
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The Lieutenant gave a brief lecture about prisoner/staff relations. We were to address all warders, irrespective of rank, as Meneer – Mister. ‘Ja Meneer!’ Relations were good and if we left them alone they would leave us alone; if we caused trouble they would too. As simple as that. ‘Yes, yes. Sounds reasonable enough. We have no reason to give you any trouble.'
Then a snorting monster shuffled into the room, handlebar moustache and all – the notorious Captain Schnepel, the head of the prison. Disrupting our lesson he shouted: ‘Stand up straight!
Ja Kaptein! when I speak to you, do you hear?’ A few more strange gruntings and snufflings and then the beast disappeared again. Obviously just some old fool trying to show who’s king around the place.
They took us up to our cells on the first floor. On the way we passed a door through which could be heard the sounds of cowboys shooting at Indians. They told us that the other prisoners were watching a film but that we would not be able to see any for three months and then only if we behaved ourselves.
A door was flung open and before us was our section – our home for the next so long. It was quite unlike Pollsmoor: the corridor was short and light with cells only on one side. I was put in cell 17, the first cell in the section and Stephen in cell 18, the second. A warder asked if we’d had anything to eat, to which we replied that we hadn’t. A short while later a relatively decent meal of chicken legs and vegetables arrived. I shouted to Stephen that maybe things weren’t going to be so bad after all.
We inspected our cells. They were light and airy, although a bit cramped: about three metres long by two metres wide. They were larger than the ones we’d had at Pollsmoor but not really large enough for pacing up and down – an important consideration for prisoners. Pity. The roof was high: about three metres. The door was to the one side of my cell and as Stephen’s cell was the mirror image of mine our doors were close together and we could pass things to each other through the bars of our grilles. As at Pollsmoor, our cells also had outer panelled steel doors, but they were left open that afternoon.
The bed was hard, but not uncomfortable.
At least it wads a proper bed, not a mat on the floor. It was neatly covered with a blue bedspread. At the foot of the bed was the toilet. It was the type we had grown accustomed to, with two curved pieces of wood fastened to the rim of the bowl on which you sat, but on which you could not sit for very long. The only difference was that it had a cover. On the wall was a push-button that flushed endless waterfalls of water – very handy for getting rid of contraband. Next to the toilet on the far wall was an ordinary porcelain hand basin with two taps. I wonder what the second tap is for? Real hot water!
What next! It feels hot enough to make coffee.
A shoulder-high cupboard was fixed against the one wall. Out of the middle of it projected a shelf that could be pulled out and used as a
Interior of cell
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table if you sat on the edge of your bed. Above the bed was a bookshelf and in the corner next to the basin a stool. That was all as far as ‘furniture’ and ‘conveniences’ were concerned.
At the far end of the cell above the basin was a large window and next to the door looking into the corridor another but smaller window. There were no bars in the windows as such: a number of narrow vertical windows closed onto frames that served as the bars. The windows could individually be swung open but the space between the frames was too narrow to fit your head through. Rumour had it that inside the frames were uncuttable tungsten bars, but this was probably just a story circulated by the prison authorities to stop prisoners trying to find out. We were amazed at the thickness of the outer wall. There was enough space to crouch sideways on the window ledge on the inside and an equal space on the other side of the window.
Outside was an extraordinary sight. Instead of just bare concrete, as there had been at Pollsmoor there was a well-tended garden with a central concreted area marked out as a small tennis court. On either side of the court were large patches of well-trimmed lawn. At the far end were several trees, one so tall that it obscured the view of the warder pacing up and down a roofed catwalk on top of a high wall. The left hand end of the catwalk was glassed off, forming a shelter for the warder on duty. The warder carried an automatic rifle. Along the right side of the yard was a high corrugated iron wall – it appeared to be a temporary structure – and about half way along its length a door. The way out! was our simultaneous first thought.
We were left to survey our new world for about two hours before we met the comrades. With a loud clang the section door flew open and in they trooped. The comrades congregated in front of our grilles to take a look at the ‘new guys’ in their cages. We shook hands through the bars and exchanged names with each of them in turn. They were clearly excited to see some new faces but we were a bit apprehensive because we weren’t sure who they were and how many there would be. As it turned out most of those whom we had expected to be there were there. Only two we had never heard of.
The person who had been there the longest was Denis Goldberg, one of the ‘Rivonia Trialists’
who was sentenced with Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders in June 1964. He had received no less than three life sentences for allegedly ‘campaigning to overthrow the government by violent revolution’. Denis, like us, was from Cape Town and had been an engineer before his capture. He was a young man of 30 and father of two at the time of his arrest in 1963. When we met him that first time he was 45.
Next was Dave Kitson, who had been inside just a few months less than Denis. He was sentenced to 20 years in December 1964 for his part in the early sabotage campaigns, for furthering the aims of ‘communism’ and for being a member of the High Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Like Denis he was also an engineer, but came from Johannesburg. He was 59 and had divorced his wife when he was imprisoned, ‘to give her her freedom’.
John Matthews was sentenced to 15 years in the same trial as Dave Kitson. It was alleged that he assisted in obtaining materials for making bombs, but I never found out exactly what he had done that deserved such a long sentence. In his trial he had grounds for appealing against his sentence but refused to do so, claiming that he was proud to be sentenced along with his co- accused. Johnny had been a bookkeeper and father in Johannesburg and was 65 years old. We’d heard of neither him nor Dave Kitson before.
After them in line, in date and length of sentence, was Alex Moumbaris. He was sentenced in June 1973 to 12 years’ imprisonment for, among other things, ‘conspiring with the ANC to instigate violent revolution in South Africa’, aiding guerrillas to enter the country, distributing
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ANC literature and reconnoitring the Transkei coast to find places for the sea borne landing of guerrillas and arms.
Alex was 40 when we met him that first time. He was the only prisoner who was not South African and as such was to South African propaganda the archetypal ‘communist’. According to this view all communists are, firstly, white, then foreigners or acting on behalf of some foreign power (usually Russia) and thirdly, but not necessarily, Jewish – which Alex wasn’t. He was born in Egypt of Greek parents. His family emigrated to Australia when he was young, but he left the place when he was sixteen because, in his words, it was ‘the arse-end of the world’. After that he spent a number of years in France where he married his wife, Marie-José. He then moved to London where he worked for about nine years before getting involved with the ANC.
He was arrested in 1972 with Marie-José while trying to enter South Africa from Botswana.
Because she was pregnant at the time and because of pressure from the French ambassador, Marie-José was not charged but was promptly deported to France.
Raymond Suttner was sentenced to seven and a half years in November 1975 for ‘taking part in the activities of an unlawful organisation’ by distributing ANC literature, and ‘undergoing training or inciting or encouraging others to undergo training, or obtaining information which could be of use in furthering the achievements of any of the objects of communism or any unlawful organisation’. Before his arrest he was a senior lecturer in law at the University of Natal in Durban. He was 32.
David Rabkin and Jeremy Cronin, who were mentioned earlier, were sentenced in September 1976 to ten and seven years respectively. David, who was 30, was working as a sub-editor for the Argus newspaper in Cape Town when he was detained with his wife Sue. From here on Dave Rabkin will be known as Dave R so as to avoid confusion with Dave K.
Jeremy, who was 28, had been a lecturer in political science at the University of Cape Town.
His wife, Anne-Marie, died shortly after his imprisonment due to a brain haemorrhage and he was denied permission to attend her funeral.
The person last sentenced before us was Tony Holiday, who was also mentioned before. He was given six years in November 1976 for establishing an underground cell with three others, receiving money from the ANC, publishing ANC literature, receiving ‘subversive’ training while working in Britain, training recruits to evade surveillance, all with the aim of ‘promoting the policies of a banned organisation’. Tony had been a senior reporter on the Cape Times at the time of his detention and before that a political reporter for the Johannesburg Rand Daily Mail. He was 38.
In a way the comrades were heroes to us. They were all people who had inspired us with their dedication to the cause and with their selfless actions that had got them into prison. They reminded us while we were working underground that there were other white South Africans who were prepared cast aside their privileges and throw in their lot with the oppressed; that we were not mad and that there were others doing the same sort of work as us.
The older comrades, Denis, Dave K and John, were all imprisoned before we became politically involved. They were of another generation. But Denis was one of Mandela’s compatriots and as such one of the names we held in greatest esteem. The detentions and trials of the others we had followed with great interest and had been inspired by the brave statements they made from the dock. The trials of Raymond and Dave R and Jeremy had provided us with much information about how they had run their cells and how the police had tracked them down. Their imprisonment had angered us no end and spurred us on to even greater activity.
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We had expected the comrades, especially those who had been in prison for 15 years, to be somewhat oppressed by their condition. But not so. Although obviously not happy to be where they were they were a group of people full of spirit and as committed to the cause as the day they were arrested – some of them probably even more so.
Denis in particular was an inspiration and made us feel ashamed of feeling sorry for ourselves.
He’d been in prison since we were young teenagers and had no date of release to look forward to. People had come, served long sentences, and gone out. He would still be in prison after we’d served our sentences, yet the prospects did not undermine his strength and commitment. It should have been us helping him but it was him who helped us by reminding us that our sentences were just ‘parking tickets'!
Ë Ë Ë
Pretoria Prison is part of a giant prison complex known incorrectly as ‘Pretoria Central’. In this complex are actually three separate prisons or prison clusters: Pretoria Central Prison proper, Pretoria Prison and a third known only as ‘Maximum’ or ‘Beverley Hills’. Also in the complex are warders’ houses, a prison shop, a shooting range and sporting and other recreational facilities for the warders.
Pretoria Central proper consists of a number of separate prison buildings. In keeping with South African ‘tradition’: one for white males, one for black males, one for white females, one for black females, and so on. Central is a ‘national’ prison and a reception centre where many prisoners start and end their sentences. Pretoria Prison is Pretoria’s local prison and consists of
‘non-white’ sections for ordinary prisoners, possibly separate ‘white’ sections for ordinary prisoners, and a maximum-security section, where we were housed. ‘Maximum’ is a special high-security prison for recidivists, habitual escapees, the ‘State President’s patients’ and the condemned.
Ours was not a large prison. It was a single building consisting of only 52 cells and built in the late 1960s specifically for white male political prisoners. At no stage had there ever been more than 22 political prisoners in the prison, with the average complement being about 10. For this reason the remaining cells were used for housing awaiting-trial prisoners, known in prison language as ‘stokkies’, from the Xhosa word isitokisi, meaning ‘prison’.
The prison building was ‘L’ shaped (see photograph below) and three storeys high. The ground floor of the long wing of the ‘L’ consisted of administrative offices; the short wing contained our dining room, storeroom, workshop and a toilet. The door to the street – through which we had entered the prison – was at the far end of the administrative section. Apart from the gate leading out of the prison yard – which actually led into prison property next door – there were no other exits from the prison.
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View of the prison and yard from the ‘pos’. Political prisoners’ section on left, middle level.
The first and second floors consisted of cells. Ours were on the first floor of the short wing; the stokkies’ occupied the rest. Each wing of cells was sealed off from the other wings and parts of the prison by panelled steel doors, making them into self-contained sections. Each section consisted of 10 or 16 cells, all facing inwards toward the yard. In the middle of each section were two shower rooms with two showers in each. At both ends of all sections were stairways leading into the yard. The stairway at the far end of the short sections had been sealed off as its ground floor entrance no longer led into the yard but into the property next door. This was as a result of the positioning of the temporary corrugated iron wall along the side of the yard a few metres inward of the old wall, leaving the entrance outside the yard. This was a temporary arrangement while construction work was going on next door. The stairway in the bend of the ‘L’ was strictly reserved for us political prisoners; the stokkies used the stair at the far end near the front door.
The prison yard was on the inside of the ‘L’. As explained, at the far end of the yard opposite our cells was the catwalk, known to the prisoners as the ‘pos’ – from the Afrikaans word for
‘post’. The entrance to the pos was through a door at the base of the wall, also on the outside of the corrugated iron fence for the same reason as the sealed-off door at the bottom of the disused stairway.
The vast part of the yard was reserved for our use but about a quarter of it below the pos was fenced off by a two-metre high corrugated iron fence for the stokkies’ use. The political prisoners were allowed to enter the stokkies’ yard through a gate that was never closed, provided there were no stokkies in it.
In the centre of the yard was our tennis and volleyball court with the two patches of lawn alongside it. Along the base of the corrugated iron wall was a flower and vegetable bed and dotted around the yard several smaller flowerbeds. Around the yard too were a number of shrubs