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Authority record

Tillmanns, Aljoscha

  • Person
  • 20th century

Aljoscha Tillmanns studied German, History, and Educational Sciences at the University of Duisburg-Essen where he subsequently joined the DFG-funded Research Training Group 1919: Precaution, prevision, prediction as research assistant. During these years, he wrote this PhD thesis based on research in various South African archives. He now works as a teacher in north-western Germany."

Maisels, Israel Aaron

  • Person
  • 1905-1994

Israel "Isie" Aaron Maisels was a Barrister, Judge and Community leader. He was appointed a King’s Counsel (KC) in 1948 and later Queen’s Counsel (QC), and practiced law from 1928-1992. He was known for his defence work in Apartheid era political and civil rights trials, most notably he was the leader of the defence team in the famous South African Treason Trial of 1956 to 1961. His Alma mater was the University of the Witwatersrand.

Commission of Inquiry into certain alleged murders

  • Corporate body
  • February-September 1990

The Commission of Inquiry into Certain alleged Murders was appointed by the then State FW de Klerk on 2 February 1990, in response to outcries by South African and international human rights groups over allegations by three former police officers in October and November 1989 that they had been members of an officially authorized and funded police death squad. In early 1990, another death squad, the Civil Cooperation Bureau (CCB), sponsored by the South African Defense Forces, was revealed. The allegations presented the de Klerk government with one of its first major domestic crises

However, the Harms Commission suffered from extremely restricted terms of reference that were very strictly applied by Harms and which prevented the investigations to go beyond the borders of the country. Therefore, the Harms Commission was seriously flawed in both design and practice. At the outset, Justice Harms announced that he would limit the inquiry to acts committed within the borders of South Africa, even though many anti-apartheid activists had been assassinated on foreign soil. Government witnesses, some of whom showed up to testify in wigs and other disguises, were not required to produce pertinent documents. The CCB was disbanded in August, but no prosecutions resulted. The Harms Commission report, which was released in September 1990, failed to name any special units of the army or police, let alone any individual officers, as participants in the death squads. The report was denounced by opposition groups as a whitewash.

Reeves, Bishop Ambrose Richard

  • Person
  • 1899-1980

The Right Reverend Bishop of the Anglican Church was born in the United Kingdom. He served as the Bishop of Johannesburg from 1949-1961, when he became active and outspoken in the struggle against Apartheid. He was deported by the South African Government, not long after the Sharpeville massacre on the 21 March 1960, and resigned as Bishop of Johannesburg in 1961.

Sagan, Leontine

  • Person
  • 1889-1974

Leontine Sagan was born in Budapest in 1890, child of Emma (nee Fasal, 1854-1940)and Isidore Schlesinger (1840-1909). She and her mother arrived in South Africa in 1899 from Vienna to join her father who had left Budapest in 1891 to seek his fortune in South Africa for the second time. The first occasion Isidore Schlesinger came to South Africa was in 1867 when he worked on the Eastern Transvaal goldfields but he had not stayed long in South Africa then.
In 1899 the Schlesinger family settled in Klerksdorp but on the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899 they moved to Johannesburg, where Leontine attended the German School. In 1903 Leontine's mother took her back to Vienna to complete hr education, particularly in the fields of music and literature. They returned to South Africa in 1905, when Leontine trained as a shorthand typist and worked in the Hungarian consulate until 1911.
When Leontine returned to Europe, she auditioned for the Max Reinhardt School of Drama in Berlin and was accepted. During the first World War she remained in Austria and Germany, pursuing her acting career. Then she turned to producing plays and her first major production was "God's Chase11 at Frankfurt-on-Maine. This was a Jewish play, acted by Christians, but was well received. In 1931 she produced the film "Children in uniform", which she had already produced on stage. As a result of the favourable publicity this film received Leontine was invited by Alexander Korda to visit England and produce a film for him called "Men of tomorrow". For this film she auditioned future stars such Robert Donat, Emlyn Williams and Merle Oberon. The film was a failure but much more success­ full was her production of "Richard the Third11 for OUDS.
The advent of the Nazis caused Leontine to leave Germany. In 1933 she brought the stage version of "Children in uniform" to South Africa and in 1935 visited Hollywood at the invitation of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film she was to produce fell through and she returned to London to produce for Ivor Novello. Then followed the wonderfully successful musicals, "Glamorous night" , "Careless rapture", "Crest of the wave", "Ace of trumps" and "The dancing years". Ivor Novello said about her in the Sunday Chronicle "The intriguing Leontine Sagan whom I had chosen as producer was the first woman ever to produce at the Lane. (Drury Lane). I admire her tremendously. Her work in 'Children in uniform' and 'Finished abroad' and the OUDS production of 'Richard the Third' was magnificent" .
Just before the outbreak of the second World War Leontine returned to South Africa and for the first time produced amateurs, both at the Little Theatre in Cape Town and the Johannesburg Reps. During the second World War she produced Madeleine Masson's plays for war charities, with actresses such as Taubie Kushlick and Moira Lister. She also produced for the Krugersdorp Players and became a member of the Board of the National Theatre. As Taubie Kushlick said 11She turned up the wick of the South African theatrical lamp".
She married Victor Fleischer, publisher and writer. He was the author of Rienzo, the rise and fall of a dictator and of many novels and short stories in German . There were no children of the marriage. Victor Fleischer died in 1950 and Leontine Sagan in 1974.

Edwards, Iain

  • Person
  • 20th century

Iain Edwards is South African historian with scholarly interests in oral history, historiography, and historical methods particularly as concerning life histories, public heritage, and history. In the early 1990s, he led the successful public campaign establishing the Kwa Muhle Museum in Durban and was a member of the African National Congress’ National Commission on Museums, Monuments and Heritage. Widely published, with key works including collaborating with Natoo Babenia, an early Umkhonto we Sizwe cadre and, for sixteen years, imprisoned on Robben, on his memoirs (1995); co-editing with Paul Maylam the first scholarly essays on African life in Durban (1996); editing the seminally important private political papers of Mewa Ramgobin, the long banned and house arrested Gandhian anti-apartheid and pro-democracy activist (2015); and, with Marc Epprecht, Working class homosexuality in South African history (2020) which includes his unique oral history interviews with the Izingqingili zaseMkhumbane. He was an historical expert on legal teams successfully representing previous African and Indian residents of Cato Manor Farm in Land Claims Court cases; was a special advisor for Civil Military Affairs to then Deputy Minister of Defence Ms Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge; and involved in the early stages of developing the historical narrative for the Freedom Park Heritage and Museum development in Pretoria. He has been a faculty member or fellow at universities in South Africa, Australia, Britain and the United States. He is currently researching South Africa’s post-1990 History Wars and related historical issues.

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