Douglas Thompson was born in England on the 8th August 1905 the son of David Chadwick Thompson and Kitty Brettle. David Thompson fought in the Boer War and in 1907 the Thompson family settled in Pretoria.

Douglas Thompson was a restless scholar. He left Pretoria Boys High in form four (192, 3) and became an iron moulding apprentice with the South African Railways and Harbours (1923-1928). The Church strongly influenced his life from an early age and in 1928 he was accepted into the Wesleyan Methodist Ministry. Between 1928 and 1930 he studied at Richmond College, the Divinity School at London University. On his return to the Union he was placed in the Geaina Area of the Pretoria Circuit. From 1937 to 1941 he was sent to Pietersburg and from 1942 - 1950 he was in Johannesburg West. From 1950 onwards he was in Springs

During his late teens Thompson became interested in world politics, local political issues, philosophy and psychology. He was particularly interested in the politics of the Soviet Union as well as the relationship between Christianity and communism. Thompson was of the first "Marxist theologians" in South Africa. He described himself as a Christian humanist and as a man who had a copy of Marx in the one hand and the Bible in the other.

Thompson was Chairman of the South African Peace Council, the Transvaal Peace Council and the Society for Peace and Friendship with Soviet Union. As the result of his involvement in these organisations he travelled to eastern bloc countries and the Soviet Union. He was also active in the Congress of Democrats, the Penal Reform League and the Child Welfare Society.

Douglas Thompson was one of the accused in the 1956 Treason Trial. He was banned from 1962-1967.

Klenerman, Fanny, 1916-1983, interviews, audio cassettes

V.R. Sargent was born in the Cape in 1909. However, the family returned to England shortly after he was born because of ill health suffered by Mrs. Sargent. After the end of the fist World War, V. R. Sargent had a long connection with the army in the U.K. and ended up in the officers training corp. He passed his exams, which entitled him to be commissioned in any British army unit. In 1928 he returned to South Africa. In 1930 he went to Rhodesia to the mining districts of Ndola and broken Hill. During the Second World War he was seconded from the South African Airforce to the position of Empire Training command in the Royal Airforce.

He spent most of his working life on the mines in South Africa. He retired as a shift boss. In latter years he was employed at the S.A.R.C. as a painter, where he met a lot of personalities. He was a great family man.

Issy Heymann was born on the 24th December 1910 in Lithuania. At the age of nineteen, in 1931, Issy arrived in South Africa. In 1935 he became an executive member of the Native Trade Assistance Union and in 1936 he joined the South African Communist Party. He was also a member of the Jewish Workers Club.

Issy Heymann fought during the Second World War and when the war ended he became a member of the Springbok Legion. After the Communist Party was banned in 1950 he became a member of the Congress of Democrats

During the State of Emergency which was declared in 1960 Issy Heymann was detained for 90 days. He was arrested and jailed in 1966 and released in 1971.

Issy Heymann died in 1989.

Julius Lewin was born in Oudtshoorn in 1907, and was educated at the University of Cape Town (B.A.1928, Ll.B. 1930). He practised at the Bar in Cape Town 1931-1933 and at the Middle Temple in London, 1936, later working as a Research Assistant and Tutor in the Colonial department of the university of London and as a lecturer at the London School of Economics.

From 1939-1967 he was a lecturer, later Senior Lecturer, later Associate Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology and African Government at the University of the Witwatersrand. He emigrated to England in 1968, first taking up a research fellowship at the University of Manchester. Later he was visiting professor of public law at Columbia University, New York, {1969) and then he worked at the North East London Polytechnic.

He was a prolific writer, producing 4 books and a great number of articles in British, American and South African journals and newspapers, mainly on the subjects of law and politics in South Africa. He died in 1984.

Abram ("Bram") Fischer was a leading Afrikaner advocate, defence lawyer in the 1956 Treason trial and the 1964 Rivonia trial, a member of the South African Communist Party and the Congress of Democrats.

Member of Parliament for Johannesburg North - Progressive and Democratic parties.

Sylvia Neame was born in 1937, one of twins. There were 4 children in the family, Peter, Graham, Sylvia and her twin sister Jennifer. She studied at Rhodes University and obtained her BA in History and Social Anthropology there in 1961. Her first 90 Day detention was in 1963. Neame was again detained under the 90 Day law in mid-1964, 2 weeks in Pretoria Central prison, and 1 1/2 months at the Fordsburg police station. She was one of the accused in Case 375/64, The State vs. Abram Fischer and 13 Others, during which Bram Fischer absconded (he returned to face a second arrest and trial in 1966), where she was charged with furthering the aims of the banned Communist Party, convicted and sentenced to 4 years imprisonment, 2 years to run concurrently.
She, together with the other accused was to spend the 9 months awaiting trial period in the 'Fort' in Johannesburg. Directly after being sentenced she was transferred to the North End prison in Port Elizabeth and was to face trial in the Humansdorp Magistrate's Court, for 'becoming or continuing to be an office-bearer of the ANC in Grahamstown from April 8 1960 to March 31 1961', advising or encouraging activities that furthered the aims of the ANC and with contributing funds to the ANC, to be sentenced to another 4 years but acquitted on appeal.
After being released from Barberton Prison (in what was then the Eastern Transvaal and is now Mpumalanga) in April 1967 she left South Africa on an exit permit, and lived in Britain for 4 1/2 years studying for part of this time at the University of Oxford, and later, from 1971, in in East Germany, where she completed a D.Phil (on the expulsion of the communists from the ICU ) at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig and was also awarded a 'Diplom' (equal to MA). Her doctorate was awarded in 1976. Thereafter she joined the staff of the University.
She returned to South Africa in 1993 with her husband but after some months returned to Germany. She returned to South Africa again for 1 1/2 years, 1999-2000, but again returned to Germany. Her published works include a three volume history entitled 'The Congress Movement: The Unfolding of the Congress Alliance 1912-1961' (Cape Town, HSRC Press, 2015), and 'Imprisoned' (Jacana, 2018).

NB: Sylvia testimony to the United Nations in 1967/68 - see link: E/CN.4/950: http://undocs.org/E/CN.4/950

Baneshik was an influential theatre and film critic in South Africa.

Prof. Emeritus Anthony Traill was formerly head of the Dept of Linguistics at Wits.