Books on a variety of topics relating to South and Southern Africa donated to the South African History Archive (SAHA) by the Netherlands Institute of Southern Africa to allow researchers to consult while vising at SAHA. Also includes posters.

The collection comprises digital and physical material. Hard copy items are marked with a single asterisk (*); digital items with two asterisks (*) and items that appear in both digital and physical form with a single + two asterisks symbol (+**) Some parts of the digital collection are located on CD's.

The collection consists of black and white digital images, sorted by year from 1983 to 1989.

Gille De Vlieg started her photographic career in 1983, and this collection documents her journey through the different provinces of South Africa (North West, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal) to explore and capture events and issues as they happened. She has been meticulous in dating her photographs, so events unfold chronologically through her lens.

She manages to reflect the tranquility of typical day to day life in a serene rural setting, in contrast to the more harsh township lifestyle, against the stark contrast of the sometimes violent political activities of the era. The repetition of certain themes through the years, such as land removals, mass funerals, political protests, etc. further strengthens her body of work as a document to the turbulent political past. Capturing gender and lifestyle issues, for example depicting women embroidering, making batik patterns on cloth, pottery, basket-making, always remain an important part of her work throughout.

Each year, however, is marked by specific political, cultural or other events:-

1983 is a small collection of 7 photo’s of rural lifestyle in the mostly North West province.

1984 focuses on the political activities of the UDF, Cosas and ECC, while 1985, still focusing on the UDF, also shifts to detentions, police brutality and the Mandela Rally in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.

1986 is dominated by images of the anti-harassment campaign, death penalty protest, Black Sash activities, and protests against the anti-incorporation into Bophutatswana. Many prominent people feature in these photos, amongst others, David Webster, Winnie Mandela, Sheena Duncan, Frank Chikane, Beyers Naude, Albertina Sisulu, Helen Joseph and Helen Suzman.

1987 contains a smaller number of photographs, and focuses mostly on the effect of the apartheid land removals on women’s everyday existence. Prison releases show photos of activist lawyer Priscilla Jana, Epinette and Govan Mbeki, Albertina Sisulu.

1988 brings an interesting angle to the collection as De Vlieg captures Afrikaner nationalism in all its glory during the 150th Celebration of the Groot Trek (unfortunately not in this collection), and Day of the Vow (Gelofte Dag) celebrations at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. With people like Betsie Verwoerd, PW Botha, FW de Klerk, Pik Botha, Eugene Terreblanche on his horse, she catches the essence of the Afrikaner of the day! She also photographs the AWB swinging their flag with a swastika against the Voortrekker Monument as backdrop.This year also features a large number of photos of the REEA Care Centre.

1989 contains a small collection of photos of street scenes in Harare, Zimbabwe and of Namibia, including Herero and Himba people. Back in South Africa the images of this year focus on street children, evicted and homeless people, and township lifestyle of Tembisa and Eureka, and the ANC Welcome Home Rally for Robben Island leaders.

19 photographs taken by De Vlieg in the township of Tembisa in 1984-1990 were added to the collection in 2011. These photographs were part of an exhibition 'Entering Tembisa - an oral and photographic exploration of the community' which was hosted in the Tembisa West Library to celebrate Heritage Day 2011. This exhibition forms part of an oral history and archival collection project on Tembisa, conducted by SAHA in 2010 and 2011.

While Gille de Vlieg is responsible for the digitisation of some of her photographs, the majority was digitised by Africa Media Online (AMO), a Pietermaritzburg based organisation, in 2009.

Laura Pollecutt's political activism started with her involvement in the Progressive Party. She later became a prominent member of the Southern Transvaal branch of the Black Sash, participating in numerous alliances and campaigns. She worked for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1997, first as Communication Officer, and later as special researcher for the hearing into the Media Under Apartheid. This led to her role in research and co-ordination for the TRC hearing on the Media and Apartheid in September 1997. Pollecutt wrote the final report with the assistance of Hugh Lewin.

As a research institute, the CSVR has generated a substantial archive documenting all areas of its activities. Materials in this collection were collected from its Transition and Reconciliation Unit (TRU) and in particular, from the office of Brandon Hamber, who served as a senior researcher and co-ordinator of the TRU.

Some documents of particular note in the collection include: submissions to the TRC by various individuals and organisations in relation to the TRC Special Hearings on Business, the Media and the role of the Judiciary, submissions from various political parties, documents from conferences and coalitions held at the time in response to issues relating to the formation and execution of a TRC in South Africa, papers, minutes and interview notes relating to reparations, three databases used by the CSVR as it undertook studies relating to the amnesty process and the HRV hearings, and articles and documents collected or written by Brandon Hamber.

Materials collected from TRC Archival Audit.

The TRC Archival Audit

Between 2003 and 2006, SAHA and Historical Papers, University of Witwatersrand embarked on a project to locate, retrieve and make available records relating to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC). The project entailed conducting an archival audit of all existing TRC records in order to identify and locate documentation in danger of being lost.

In the process of conducting the archival audit, SAHA and HP located many collections from individuals and organizations that participated in the TRC process, including this collection. Selections from these materials as well as TRC related material found in the freedom of Information Collection and other pre-existing SAHA and HP collections, were digitized and can be accessed online at http://truth.wwl.wits.ac.za/

A guide to archival resources relating to South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission can also be found at http://www.saha.org.za/pdf/trc_directory.pdf

While the Brian Currin Collection is a private collection, the records do give substantial insight into the professional life of the donor. As a private collection it is incomplete in the sense that a number of items that were regarded as being too personal for the public domain were removed from the Collection. Some items were faxed transmissions and had faded to the point of being illegible.

These documents were disposed of, while those that had maintained a certain degree of legibility have been photocopied and form part of the collection. This was done in collaboration with Currin himself.

The processor of this Collection was given several lever arch files of documents. After a number of bouts of sorting, the records were divided into three discrete groups:

Personal letters, which provide insight into personal and working relationships with individuals and organisations

Diary files that covers events over a period of 7 years, from 1987 to 1993

Subject files including topics such as: Political prisoners and Indemnity

The records are paper-based records and comprise correspondence, diary entries, invitations to events, programmes of conferences and the like, newspaper clippings and cards. However, an audio cassette entitled: 'Diakonia Breakfast Briefing 4/8/94. Brian Currin on the Truth Commission,' forms part of an otherwise entirely paper-based collection. [Ethel appears to have misplaces this cassette as it is not in the boxes.]

As the largest part of the collection comprises 'diary files' consisting of multiple types of documents - traditional diary entries, letters, newspaper articles, drafts of addresses and press statements - the methodology employed was to arrange and classify the records/records accumulations strictly chronologically - but taking into account how the donor had arranged his documents in the lever arch files.

Some records are not dated. These have been identified as such and have been arranged in the order and as part of the fonds which Currin himself had created when compiling his diary. This methodology applies to the letters as well. (In some instances Currin placed newspaper articles in his 'Letters' lever arch file).

In cases where it might be reasonably presumed that a record had been erroneously dated, this circumstance was indicated as such. In some cases the archivist undertook research to establish when certain undated records may have been created in that particular form. In these instances errors may have crept in.