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BRAM FISCHER AND NELSON MANDELA –
COMRADES IN ARMS
Lord Joffe
Bram Fischer Lecture at
New College, Oxford
Thursday 8 November 2007
I feel particularly privileged to give this Lecture tonight because not only did I work with Bram
Fischer but I admired and respected and indeed loved him.
I am certain that Bram, as a previous student of New College, would have felt honoured for there to
be an Annual Lecture at New College bearing his name, and I would like to express my deep
appreciation to all those who have made it possible including naturally the Warden, our Chairman
this evening, Professor David Anderson and Dr Nic Cheeseman and Yvonne Malan who worked
extremely hard to make it happen. And I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to
Yvonne who not only conceived the idea of this Lecture but, in addition in South Africa, in the face
of strident and aggressive opposition, persuaded Stellenbosch University to honour Bram by
awarding him a posthumous Honorary Doctorate.
My talk tonight is about two great South Africans, Nelson Mandela and Bram Fischer.
Nelson Mandela is a name revered throughout the world and in the view of many, the leading
statesman of his time.
Bram Fischer is a name virtually unknown anywhere in the world outside South Africa yet in
almost every way he was Nelson Mandela’s equal – a truly remarkable man with a charm, a great
gentleness and a personal sincerity which endeared him to everybody. But he also had the other
qualities of outstanding people – a clear insight, tremendous drive and ability, singleness of purpose
and immense courage and integrity. He exemplified to me all that was good and noble in an
otherwise sick, cruel and oppressive society.
The friendship between Nelson Mandela and Bram Fischer went back to 1943 when Bram, aged
then 35, having embarked on a successful legal career at the Johannesburg Bar was supplementing
his earnings as a part-time Law Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand. Nelson Mandela,
then 25 years of age, was one of his students.
As Mandela wrote in his autobiography, ‘The Long Walk to Freedom’:
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“At Wits I began a lifelong friendship with Bram Fischer. Although he could have been Prime
Minister of South Africa he became one of the bravest and staunchest friends of the freedom
struggle that I have ever known.”
In my talk tonight I will touch upon some of the parallels in the lives of these two great South
Africans. Then I want to go into rather more detail about the life and career of Bram Fischer and
then dwell upon the Rivonia Trial in 1964 in which Bram Fischer succeeded in saving Nelson
Mandela and his colleagues from the gallows but in the process sacrificed his own life. I will then
touch upon Bram’s life after the Trial, until his death in prison.
The parallels between the lives of these two extraordinary men, the one from the tribe of the
oppressors, and the other from the oppressed were remarkable.

Each was born into aristocracies – Bram Fischer into the aristocracy of the Afrikaner
people, Nelson Mandela into the Thembu Tribe where his father was a Chief by both Blood
and custom.

Both had happy childhoods and were fine sportsmen.

Identified as future leaders of their people they both became lawyers.

Both fought for freedom – Bram Fischer to free the Afrikaner people from the burden of
being oppressors, Nelson Mandela to free his people from the burden of oppression.

Both believed in non-violence but reluctantly concluded that there was no alternative other
than to resort to violence in South Africa.

Both went underground, travelled overseas but returned at great risk to continue the
struggle for freedom.

Both were apprehended and charged with treason. Faced with possible death sentences,
they stood by their beliefs, justified what they had done and refused to ask for clemency.

Both were sentenced to life imprisonment and in prison under the harshest conditions
imaginable continued to be an example to their followers and to challenge the prison
system.
The life of Nelson Mandela is so well known, and many of you will have read his autobiography, so
until I get to the Rivonia Trial where Bram’s and Nelson Mandela’s lives were so closely linked, I
will talk rather more about the life and career of Bram Fischer.
Bram’s grandfather, Abraham Fischer, became Prime Minister of the Orange River Colony after the
Anglo Boer War. Bram’s father, Percy Fischer became Judge President of the Orange Free State.
With that background it would have been natural for Bram to have become an Afrikaner
Nationalist. But as he delved more thoughtfully into politics, a new vision for South Africa was
beginning to take shape in his mind.
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In 1931 he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to New College and arrived in England in January
1932 aged 24. This was the time of the Depression with 3,000,000 unemployed, and with hunger
marchers walking from Jarrow to London, battling with the police and Oswald Mosley’s British
Union of Fascist. Thinking people in England were beginning to search for alternative ideologies,
to explain the present and point the way to the future, and this undoubtedly influenced the thinking
of the young Bram Fischer.
New College sounded a rather attractive place to be in and Bram had little difficulty in adapting to
the luxury of a bedroom, a sitting room with a fire and a piano thrown in. I wonder if it is still like
this. He travelled widely in Europe and visited both Russia and Germany. There he had the
opportunity of studying Communism and Nazism and formulating his own ideas on the relevance of
both to South Africa.
Returning to South Africa in 1935 at the age of 28, Bram was inexorably drawn to the Communist
party. It was not originally a matter of ideology but rather of example. It was always the members
of the Communist Party who seemed prepared, regardless of cost, to sacrifice most; to give of their
best, to face the greatest dangers, in the struggle against poverty and discrimination. It was only the
Communist Party in South Africa which had always refused to accept any colour bar, and which
stood firm in the belief of the eventual brotherhood of all men. It was the fearless adherence to
principle of the Communists in South Africa that attracted Bram, principles which had nothing to
do with personal gain but were for the common good.
Joining the Communist Party he identified himself with what had always been the most unpopular
political creed amongst white South Africans. He spoke on Communist Party platforms and made
no secret of his communist beliefs, thereby closing all those doors of personal advancement which
would otherwise have stood open to him. His legal career was remarkable. On the one hand he
appeared, usually without payment, in many of the most celebrated political trials in South Africa,
throwing himself into the defence with a singleness of purpose and personal dedication only
possible for a man devoted both to justice and to the triumph of the ideals which had led the
accused to the Dock. On the other hand, he also appeared frequently on brief to the great financial
institutions, especially the multi-millionaire mining corporation, in some of the most abstruse legal
and financial cases in South African courts.
Writing of Bram, Nelson Mandela said:
“Bram was a courageous man who followed the most difficult course any person could choose to
follow. He challenged his own people because he felt that what they were doing was morally
wrong. As an Afrikaner, his conscience forced him to protect his own heritage and be ostracised by
his own people; he showed a level of courage and sacrifice that was immeasurable. I fought only
against injustice not against my own people.”
As the Nationalist Party year after year heightened its hold on power, eliminated its opponents and
as one repressive law followed another, Nelson Mandela and Bram Fischer remained in the
forefront of the liberation struggle.
Nelson Mandela had by 1952 become Deputy National President of ANC. Since then his life had
followed the inevitable pattern – arrested as an organiser in the Defiance Campaign, three years as
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an accused in the Treason Trial beginning in 1956, then a series of bans followed confining him to
Johannesburg, prohibiting him from gatherings and effectively silencing him.
While Nelson Mandela was one of the accused in the 1956 Treason Trial, Bram was one of the
leaders of the team of lawyers who handled the Trial which lasted for no less than three years. One
hundred and fifty six white and non-white leaders of the movement for national equality in South
Africa were charged with treason, and all emerged triumphant at the end.
In 1961 Nelson Mandela went underground. He travelled abroad on a mission for the African
National Congress and while abroad he received military training. He then returned from this
mission to South Africa and lived an underground life where he was known as the black pimpernel.
After a year underground, Nelson Mandela was arrested and charged with leaving the country
without a passport and with inciting others to strike. At his trial in the Magistrates Court, he
represented himself and made it clear to the Court that he could expect no justice from a white
Court staffed by a white Magistrate with white prosecutors and white policemen in a society
dominated by whites. Sentenced to five years imprisonment with hard labour, he was despatched to
Robben Island prison in August 1961 and virtually nothing was heard of him for many months.
In the meantime Bram Fischer had remained in close contact with the underground ANC and
Communist Party, frequently visiting its leaders at its Headquarters on the Rivonia Farm.
In July 1962, whilst Nelson Mandela was serving his sentence on Robben Island, the newspapers
headlined a story that seven men had been arrested at Rivonia and that these arrests heralded the
end of subversion in South Africa. The Minister of Justice let it be known that a major political trial
would be the climax to these arrests. Rumours were leaked that the entire leadership of the African
National Congress would figure in these trials and that Nelson Mandela, already imprisoned for a
year, would somehow or other be amongst them. In the meantime, those arrested were locked up in
solitary detention under the infamous 90 Day Law and a blanket of silence descended over what
was happening to them.
For two months an unprecedented media campaign against the Rivonia men and their supporters
was mounted by governments Ministers and the police, through the columns of the press and on
radio.
The families of the people arrested grew increasingly anxious and inevitably turned to Bram Fischer
to organise a defence for whoever might be charged. There were two problems Bram faced. The
one was to find a solicitor who would handle the case and the other was to find funds for the
defence. He solved the first problem by finding me and the second by approaching John Collins, a
Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral, who had set up the Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa and
was a true friend of the liberation movement of South Africa.
My starting point was to put together a team of barristers. There were at that time two immensely
talented junior barristers, Arthur Chaskalson and George Bizos who were natural choices for such a
trial. We then approached Bram to lead the defence team and to our surprise found that he was
reluctant to accept the brief.
What we did not realise was the true reason for his reluctance. For unknown to us, Bram had been
involved at Rivonia itself, and had been seen by a number of people, including the black workers at
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the farmhouse, who were now to be produced as prosecution witnesses. Any one of them asked to
identify any person in Court they had seen at Rivonia, could have turned to Bram and pointed him
out. To go into the trial was a tremendous risk for Bram but despite this, with the extraordinary
courage that was a hallmark of the man, he agreed to lead the defence team.
In October 1962 we learnt that the trial was due to start and we could see our clients. We drove to
Pretoria, 40 miles away from Johannesburg, where the trial was to be held in order to cause the
defence team the maximum amount of inconvenience, and asked for out clients.
Eventually the prisoners were ushered into the tiny little room where our consultations were to take
place. Nelson Mandela was amongst them. In his middle forties at the time, he was in South
African regulation prison garb for blacks – short trousers like a young boy’s, open toed ill-made
sandals and a khaki open-necked shirt. White South African prisoners in those days wore long
trousers, black prisoners shorts.
In addition to Nelson Mandela, there were nine other accused, the best known being Walter Sisulu
and Govan Mbeki.
We explained to them exactly how serious the charges were against them. They were to be charged
for attempting to overthrow the State by violent revolution. Under the Sabotage Act a person could
be sentenced to death for throwing a stone through a window with political intent. Accordingly it
needed little imagination to conclude that for the offence which Nelson Mandela and the others
were charged, death by hanging was almost inevitable if they were found guilty.
Nelson Mandela made their positions clear. They were not concerned with the legalities of the
charge. They were concerned with the politics. They readily admitted that almost all of them had
taken part in a political campaign which was designed to bring about the overthrow of the
Government. They had no intention whatsoever of denying these facts in the witness box. Instead
they welcomed the opportunity to use the Courts as a platform from which to clarify their position
to the country and to the world. Nelson Mandela saw it as the role of the leader to accept
responsibility for his actions. Under no circumstances would we be permitted to cross-examine
witnesses who were telling the truth.
In the light of his instructions the strategy for the trial became clear. The Government intended the
trial to be a ‘show trial’ aimed at discrediting the accused and all they stood for. Nelson Mandela
also intended it to be a ‘show trial’ but it would be a trial which would show the world the justice of
the cause for which he and his co-accused were fighting, and they would put the Government on
trial in the Court of World Opinion.
Bram Fischer’s role was to plan how this was to be achieved and only as a secondary objective,
how to save the lives of the accused and obtain the discharge of the accused against whom there
was insufficient evidence.
The strategy which Bram designed was firstly to diffuse the highly charged atmosphere verging on
hysteria which the Government and prosecution were deliberately building up, and then to calmly
and judiciously dissect the State case and establish that although the accused had been planning for
an armed uprising, no decision had yet been made to implement that plan. It was clear that if the
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State was able to prove that a decision had been made to begin guerrilla warfare, then the Court
would have little alternative other than to pass a death sentence.
On 10 November 1962, the Trial began before Judge President of Transvaal, Mr Justice de Wet. He
was an arrogant man with little justification for his arrogance. He showed throughout the Trial that
he was a typical white South African, with all the prejudices that that implied, with all the ready
attitudes of white superiority and he was unquestionably sensitive to the needs of the white society
in which he believed. He was certainly not the Judge we would have chosen for the Trial.
The Judge entered and the Court was in Session. From the cells below the Courts came Nelson
Mandela leading the accused. As he stepped into the Dock he calmly ignored the Judge, turned to
look at the non-white gallery and raised his hands in salute, shouting “Amandla” (power) and the
roar came back from the assembled non-whites “Ngawetu” (it shall be ours). The Registrar of the
Court read the charge “Accused number one, Nelson Mandela, how do you plead to the indictment
served upon you?” Nelson Mandela looked up and said clearly “The Government should be in the
Dock not me, I plead Not Guilty.” Absolute consternation, the police muttered angrily. Mr Justice
de Wet looked annoyed, the Prosecutor absolutely horrified. The remaining accused responded in a
similar way, and so the trial began.
It was an unusual trial in many ways. It ranged good against evil yet, perversely, the people
accused of evil personified what was good and the accusers exemplified evil.
The State Prosecutor, Dr Percy Yutar, behaved throughout in a manner that discredited the little that
was left of the better traditions of the South African judicial system. He was hysterical,
unscrupulous and placed every obstacle he could in the way of the defence, seeking as well to
demean and discredit the accused and constantly playing to the public galleries and the police.
Bram Fischer, leading the defence, conducted it with the natural dignity which one would expect
from a good advocate – calm, reflective and decisive, courteous and helpful, seldom raising his
voice even in the middle of the most telling cross-examination but demonstrating tempered steel in
the pursuit of his clients best interests.
Over a period of five months the State called 178 witnesses and handed in thousands of documents.
Some of the witnesses told some of the truth, some none of the truth and some changed their
evidence during the course of cross-examination to fit in with the prosecution case.
Apart from the police witnesses and a number of experts, most of the witnesses were held in solitary
confinement and had been for several months before the trial began. They realised that it was only
if they gave evidence as dictated by the prosecution that they would go free.
We had two eminent psychiatrists available to testify that witnesses held in solitary confinement for
prolonged periods were unable often to distinguish between facts and fiction. Justice de Wet
refused to allow us to call these witnesses, saying with his usual arrogance that he was the only
person competent to judge the credibility or otherwise of the witnesses and that he did not need the
help of Psychiatrists to do this.
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The defence strategy was, of course, determined by the instructions that we had received. Because
we were not permitted to cross-examined witnesses who were telling the truth, we were by our
failure to cross-examine, accepting the evidence and by default admitting the guilt of many of the
accused.
As I have already mentioned in order to avoid a death sentence it was of critical importance for the
defence to establish that, although plans to embark on an armed uprising had actually been made, no
decision had been taken to actually implement these plans. Not one of the 178 witnesses was able
to give credible evidence to establish that such a decision had indeed been taken and the judge had
no alternative other than to accept that no such decision had been taken.
Eventually the State’s case ended and it was time for the defence. We had decided that Nelson
Mandela would be our first witness, and he would explain to the Court why he had reluctantly
abandoned the ANC’s policy of non-violence, and why there could be no peace in South Africa
while the majority of South Africans had no rights.
The Court was full to overflowing with policemen, foreign dignitaries and the families and friends
of the accused. Nelson Mandela slowly stood up in the dock and began reading very quietly the
statement which he had prepared in a flat, even voice. At no stage did he raise his voice or change
from the slow, measured speech with which he had started. His voice carried clearly across the
Court. Gradually as he spoke the silence became more and more profound until it seemed that noone in the Court dared move or breathe.
He started from the days of his youth explaining what had led him first of all to the African
National Congress and later to the founding of Umkomte We Sizwe – the military organisation in
which he had played a leading part.
He described how he had travelled abroad on a mission for the African National Congress and while
abroad had received military training. He had returned from his mission to South Africa, taken up
the struggle again and lived an underground life until his arrest. He dealt with the way Africans live
in South Africa and the grievances of the African people ending off:
“The struggle of the ANC is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people inspired by
their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live. During my
lifetime, I have dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white
domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic
and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.”
At this moment he paused. A long pause, in which you could hear a pin drop in the Court and then
he looked up squarely at the Judge and said “It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve”
and dropping his voice very low added “ but, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to
die.”
He sat down in a moment of profound silence. He had spoken for 5 hours and perhaps for 30
seconds there was silence.
Each of the accused then either gave their evidence or made a statement from the Dock. The
defence case took little over a month and in June 1963 we closed our case. After an adjournment of
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three weeks, Mr Justice de Wet delivered his judgement very quickly and found that all the accused
were guilty except for Lionel Bernstein, who was acquitted.
All that remained was the sentence.
After judgement we stopped at the jail to talk to the accused. They were calm, although now living
in the shadow of death. The strain and tension was becoming almost unbearable to the defence
lawyers, but the accused were adamant that there would be no pleas from them for mitigation of
sentence, and they only wanted to discuss how they should respond if the death sentence was
passed. We told them that the Judge would ask the first accused, Nelson Mandela, “have you any
reason to advance why the sentence of death should not be passed?” Nelson decided that he would
have a lot to say including telling the Court that if they thought that by sentencing him to death they
would oust the liberation movement, they were wrong.
We pointed out to him that such an address was hardly designed to facilitate an appeal in the event
of a death sentence. He explained that he, Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki had discussed with their
colleagues the question of an appeal against a possible death sentence. They thought that such an
appeal would be interpreted by their supporters as an act of weakness. Their main concern was that
their behaviour throughout should be such as would inspire their followers, and let them understand
that no sacrifice was too great to be made in the cause of freedom. They had decided it was
politically inadvisable to appeal against a death sentence.
The Court convened and Justice de Wet curtly sentenced all the accused to life imprisonment and
got up and left the Court.
It was an abrupt end. A strange feeling of anti-climax hung over us all, after nine months of such
tension. The men in the Dock, who had shown no signs of emotion while de Wet was talking,
turned to the public galleries and smiled, and then slowly disappeared out of sight for the last time
down the Court Room’s steps to the underground cells.
We shook hands silently with Bram. It had been his responsibility to save their lives and it was his
victory. We sensed at the time, I think, that this was the last great trial of a great advocate and a
great man. None of us thought though that his next appearance in Court would not be at the
Counsel’s table but in the Dock, accused himself of participating in the very conspiracy for which
these men had just been sentenced.
That night the accused were flown to Robben Island.
The next morning Bram Fischer left for Cape Town by car. He had planned to take a holiday and
now he would take time off to interview the accused on Robben Island. His wife Molly, was with
him. She was loved by us all. Throughout the trial she catered for us, helped us with the backroom
work, gathering the material we required and generally kept us going.
That night on the road travelling through the dry and dusty Free State, Bram approached a bridge.
A motorcyclist came the other way swinging on the wrong side of the road to avoid a cow. Bram
swerved to avoid the motorcyclist. His car left the road, plunged into the river bed and dropped into
a water filled hole some thirty feet deep. The car filled with water and Molly drowned.
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Bram and Molly’s marriage had been one of great happiness. Molly was a wonderful woman
totally committed to the struggle for freedom and had been imprisoned during the 1961 Emergency.
From that moment on, when tragedy ended thirty years of marriage some vital spark seemed to have
gone out of Bram but he bore up magnificently devoting himself to the future of his friends on
Robben Island. By sheer effort of will he put his grief aside. Seven days later he and I flew
together to Robben Island to see Nelson Mandela and his colleagues to discuss the question of an
appeal against the sentences. Bram was strongly of the view that an appeal should be lodged but
Nelson Mandela and his colleagues were adamant. Throughout the trial they had accepted full
responsibility for their actions. Any appeal might be interpreted by the liberation movement as a
sign of weakness and there accordingly could be no question of an appeal.
Nelson Mandela, in his autobiography, touches on part of that meeting in which Bram never
mentioned Molly’s death. I quote what Mandela wrote when he subsequently learnt from his
gaolers of Molly’s death.
“The refusal to talk about Molly and what had happened was typical of Bram’s character. He was a
man who never burdened his friends with his own pains and troubles. He had come to advise us
and to express concern at our predicament. He did not want to become the focus of our concern.”
Shortly after Bram and I had returned to Johannesburg he was arrested and together with ten others
was charged under the Suppression of Communism Act. Bram became accused No. 12 at the trial
that became known as the Fischer Trial.
While in custody awaiting trial himself, an appeal in a commercial trial, which Bram had handled
two years previously in the Rhodesian Federal High Court, came up for hearing in the Privy
Council and Bram was briefed to appear. He applied for bail to enable him to attend the Privy
Council hearing in London and undertook to return as soon as the appeal was over. To everyone’s
astonishment the Magistrate granted the application for bail saying “Fischer is a son of our soil and
an advocate of standing in our country.” There was every reason to believe that the Government
hoped that having left the country, he would not return. His presence in South Africa was an
embarrassment to them because of his history, his stature and the tradition that he represented.
Bram flew to England to appear before the Privy Council in a hearing that lasted barely two days.
The appeal that he was opposing was dismissed and he was free to return to South Africa. He was
under intense pressure from friends and family to remain in England and to carry on the struggle
from outside. This he felt he could not do. He had an immense sense of responsibility to those that
had remained behind to carry on the struggle and, in any event, he had given his word that he would
return. You may be interested to learn that before leaving England he made a last visit to New
College. There he saw the Warden and made provision for his son, Paul, to go there should he so
wish.
On his return to South Africa, Bram’s trial resumed and to Bram’s immense sorrow one of the key
members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party turned State evidence. It became clear
that immense damage had been done, both to the Communist Party and the underground ANC.
With both organisations in such disarray Bram began to think that he could make a greater
contribution to the liberation movement by going underground.
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On Monday 25 January 1965 Bram did not appear in the usual manner at the Court. His counsel,
Harold Hanson QC, rose to say that a letter had been delivered to him that morning that he would
like to read out to the Court.
“By the time this reaches you I shall be a long way from Johannesburg and shall absent myself from
the remainder of the trial. But I shall still be in the country to which I said I would return when I
was granted bail.”
Underground Bram Fischer travelled the country and became known as the ‘Red Pimpernel’.
Mailing letters to the press from all over South Africa he created endless confusion within the
police force.
After almost a year the police eventually apprehended Bram in November 1965, eleven months
after he had gone underground.
On 23 March 1966, in the Central Court of the Palace of Justice in Pretoria – the very same Court in
which Nelson Mandela and his colleagues had been tried – Bram sat alone in the twelve man Dock
which had been constructed especially for the Rivonia Trail. Then he had led the defence; now he
was the accused.
He was charged with countless offences, the most important of which was of sabotage, it being
alleged that he had conspired with others to cause a violent revolution in South Africa. Virtually
the same charge that his Comrade in Arms, Nelson Mandela, had faced only two years earlier.
The trial went the same way as the Mandela Trial and Bram Fischer adopted the same approach.
He would accept responsibility for his actions as he said in his statement to the Court:
“My Lord, when a man is on trial for his political beliefs and actions, two courses are open to him.
He can either confess to his transgressions and plead for mercy, or he can justify his beliefs and
explain why he has acted as he did. Were I to ask for forgiveness today I would betray my cause.
That course, my Lord, is not open to me. I believe what I did was right.
I accept, my Lord, the general rule that for the protection of society laws should be obeyed. But
when the laws themselves become immoral, and require the citizen to take part in an organised
system of oppression – if only by his silence and apathy – then I believe a higher duty arises. This
compels one to refuse to recognise such laws.
It was to keep faith with all those dispossessed by apartheid that I broke my undertaking to the
Court, that I separated myself from my family, pretended that I was someone else, and accepted the
life of a fugitive. I owed it to the political prisoners, to the banished, to the silenced and to those
under house arrest not to remain a spectator, but to act. I knew what they expected of me, and I did
it. I felt responsible not to those who are indifferent to the sufferings of others, but to those who are
concerned. I knew I would be condemned by people who are content to see themselves as
respectable and loyal citizens. I do not regret any such condemnation that may follow me.
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My conscience, my Lord, does not permit me to afford these laws such as even a plea of guilty
would involve. Hence, although I shall be convicted by this Court, I cannot plead guilty. I believe
that the future may well say that I acted correctly.”
At the end of the trial Bram was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Incarcerated in Pretoria Central Jail, Bram Fischer lived the life of a common criminal, washing the
toilets and urinals by hand with rags, persecuted by Warders who did all they could to humiliate
him. However, being Bram Fischer, he was able to cope even with this. In time everyone in the
prison including white warders would come to Bram with their needs and their troubles. No
decision of any importance was taken without hearing his views. When requests or complaints had
to be made, it was invariably Bram Fischer who made them.
In January 1971, Bram’s young son Paul died but the prison authorities refused permission for
Bram to attend the funeral. When his two daughters came to see him after Paul’s death even a
contact visit with them was refused.
In December 1974, Bram was diagnosed as having cancer. It was clear that he was dying but
despite representations from all over the world, the government refused to release him. In March
1975, paralysed in both legs and unable to walk, the authorities decided at last to let him go but,
scared of him to the very end, they decided not to release him but rather to declare that his brother’s
home was a prison and that he would be detained at his brother’s home but subject to prison
regulations. Unbelievably, right to the very end the South African prison authorities applied the
apartheid laws in their strictest sense. They discovered that Bram’s brother had employed a night
nurse who was coloured. They insisted that as this was a prison, a coloured nurse for a white
prisoner was unacceptable and the coloured nurse had to be replaced.
On 8 May 1975 Bram died in the prison set up in his brother’s home. It was one day less than nine
years since he was sentenced to life imprisonment and he was only 67 years old. Nelson Mandela,
on Robben Island, asked for permission to attend his funeral. This was refused.
Even then the Security police were not finished with Bram. They came to Bram’s brother’s home
with a letter which stipulated that the family could have the body for the funeral, provided it was
held within a week and that his ashes, if there was a cremation, would have to be returned to the
Department of Prisons.
So the ashes of the man who, if he had chosen not to follow his conscience, could have been Prime
Minister of South Africa, were returned to the prison authorities. They have never been found.
Let me end with another quotation from Nelson Mandela:
“The policy of apartheid created a deep and lasting wound in my country and my people. All of us
will spend many years, if not generations, recovering from that profound hurt but the dictates of
oppression and brutality had other unintended effects and that is what produced the Bram Fischer’s
(and others) of our time – men of such extraordinary courage, wisdom and generosity that their like
may never be known again. Perhaps it requires such a depth of oppression to create such heights of
character. My country is rich in the minerals and gems that lie beneath its soil but I have always
known that its greatest wealth is its people, finer and truer than minerals and diamonds.”
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How aptly that describes Bram Fischer and Nelson Mandela.
Thank you.