Denis Theodore Goldberg (11 April 1933 – 29 April 2020) was a South African social campaigner who was active in the struggle against apartheid. He was accused No. 3 of 11 defendants in the Rivonia Trial of 1964, alongside the better-known Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu. He was the youngest of the defendants.
He was convicted and imprisoned for 22 years, along with other key members of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. After his release in 1985, he continued to campaign against apartheid from his base in London with his family. The apartheid system was fully abolished with the 1994 election.
He returned to South Africa in 2002 and founded the non-profit Denis Goldberg Legacy Foundation Trust in 2015. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in July 2017, and died in Cape Town on 29 April 2020.
Biography
Early life
Denis Theodore Goldberg was born on 11 April 1933 in Cape Town, South Africa and grew up in a family that welcomed people of all races into their house. He was the son of Annie (Fineberg), a seamstress, and Sam Goldberg, a truck driver. His parents were born in London, the children of Lithuanian Jews who had emigrated to England in the latter half of the 19th century. Both parents were politically active communists while living in London. After moving to Cape Town, they played an active role in the local Woodstock Branch of the South African Communist Party. Sam supported the family with a series of small businesses.
In March 1950, at age 16, Goldberg began his studies in civil engineering at the University of Cape Town. In his final year he met Esme Bodenstein, who also came from a family active in the Communist Party. They married in January 1954. Their daughter Hilary was born in 1955 and their son David in 1957.
Anti-apartheid activism in South Africa
Modern Youth Society
Bodenstein was a committee member of the multiracial Modern Youth Society (MYS), through which Goldberg became friends with Andimba Toivo Ya Toivo. The latter man later co-founded SWAPO (South West African People’s Organisation) and, after Namibian independence, became one of its leaders. The MYS aimed to raise awareness and solidarity by various means, including selling the "New Age" newspaper, canvassing door-to-door, and holding night classes to educate and politicise working people. The Goldbergs also became involved in the Congress of Democrats. Although these activities were not illegal, the couple and other activists were constantly harassed by the Security Police, who were building up dossiers on those involved.
1955: Congress of the People
In 1953 prominent black academic Z. K. Matthews proposed that a "Congress of the People" be organised to gather and document the wishes of the people. Organising committees were set up across South Africa, and Goldberg joined the Cape Town committee. Tasked with organising residents of the desperately poor Loyolo informal settlement in Simonstown, he visited Loyolo every weekend to help the community elect their delegate. After being spotted there by Security Police, he was fired from his job on the South African Railways.
The Western Cape delegates were stopped by the Security Police and held in jail to prevent them attending the Congress of the People in Kliptown. But on 25–26 June 1955, 3,000 delegates gathered there and adopted the Freedom Charter. This movement led to the formation of the Congress Alliance, bringing together an alliance of four racially-based anti-apartheid political movements: the African National Congress (ANC), the Congress of Democrats (COD), the South African Indian Congress (SAIC) and Coloured Peoples Congress (CPC), into one large multi-racial movement, sometimes called the Charterists.
1960: first prison experience
In 1957 Goldberg joined the Communist Party (which had been banned in 1950). He was arrested on 30 March 1960 for supporting strikers in the townships in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960. Along with his mother, he spent four months in prison without trial. He subsequently lost his job working on the construction of the Athlone Power Station, which added to the burden placed on Esme to support the family. Faced with similar circumstances, several comrades left the country.
1961–1963: armed resistance
With the government using increasingly violent methods to suppress peaceful protests, Goldberg and others argued for an armed struggle against the police and military. After the underground armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation", or MK) was founded as an armed wing of the ANC in December 1961, Goldberg became a technical officer. The aim was to act only against hard targets, such as power pylons and avoid any injury or loss of life.
Together with Looksmart Ngudle, Goldberg helped organise a training camp at Mamre, outside Cape Town, in December 1962. The camp was later recognised as the first MK training centre inside South Africa; however it had to be abandoned early due to Security Police interest. Goldberg was later charged for his involvement in the camp and other activities at the Rivonia Trial.
Following a wave of sabotage attacks, the government passed two pieces of legislation. The 90-Day Detention Law of 1963 allowed the Security Police to detain a person for 90 days without charging them or allowing access to a lawyer, and the Sabotage Act of 1962 shifted the onus of proof, requiring the accused to prove their innocence. MK decided that Goldberg needed to leave the country to be trained elsewhere for a while, but first he had to travel to Johannesburg to obtain clearance from the MK High Command.
In Johannesburg Goldberg helped in the radio broadcast of a speech on 26 June Freedom Day by Walter Sisulu, who was out on bail at the time. This was to show people that the ANC was still active despite government repression. Lionel Gay, a lecturer in physics at Witwatersrand University, built the radio transmitter.
Arrest and imprisonment
July 1963: arrest at Liliesleaf
On 11 July 1963, the security police raided Liliesleaf farmhouse in Rivonia in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. Activists intended that day to hold the last meeting there, after they had been using the house as a secret site for nearly two years. Goldberg was arrested at the farm along with several others, including Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba and Rusty Bernstein.
Goldberg was subjected to a series of often aggressive interrogations, sometimes threatened with hanging and at other times offered inducements to turn state witness. He was told that his friend, Looksmart Ngudle, had died in prison. Esme had also been arrested and was held under the 90-day Detention Law for 38 days, during which she was treated harshly and subjected to threats to have her children removed from her.
On 8 October 1963, after the 90-day detention period had expired, Goldberg and the other activists were charged with offences under the Sabotage Act. (Nelson Mandela was in prison at the time of the raid, but documents found at Liliesleaf enabled the State to add him as a co-accused.) The subsequent trial became known as the Rivonia Trial.
1963–1964: the Rivonia Trial
The day after being charged, Goldberg and his co-accused met with their lawyers – Bram Fischer, Joel Joffe, Arthur Chaskalson and George Bizos – who told them that their situation was dire and that death by hanging was the likely outcome. Goldberg, in an effort to protect Mandela and the other leaders, offered to take responsibility by saying that he had exceeded his instructions in regard to weapons manufacture, arguing that the evidence against him was the most difficult to refute given that the plans had clearly been written by him. This offer was dismissed by the others. An escape plan was discussed, and Goldberg insisted that Esme and the children go into exile, for fear of repercussions should he be successful. Esme and the children left for Britain in December 1963, but Goldberg was unable to escape.
After two of the accused had escaped, the verdict was delivered on 12 June 1964: Bernstein was acquitted and Bob Hepple was discharged; the rest were all found guilty. The judge declined to impose the death sentence; instead eight of those convicted were sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment each. At 31 years old, Goldberg was the youngest of those sentenced and the only white man. His mother, who was in the court for sentencing, did not hear the judge, and shouted “Denis, what is it? What did the judge say?", to which Goldberg responded: “Life, and life is wonderful”.
June 1964: Pretoria Central Prison
Goldberg was sent to the Whites section of Pretoria Central Prison, while the others were sent to Robben Island. Like the others, he did not appeal his sentence. He was mostly alone in his cell for 16 to 18 hours a day. Prisoners were forbidden to talk amongst themselves and the harsh conditions often led to illness and psychological stress.
After four years, Esme was allowed to visit for the first time, but restricted to five half-hour visits. After another four years she was again allowed to visit, but after that never again, with no explanation given. After eight years, his children were allowed to visit, but again with severe restrictions.
In the first period, only one 500-word letter was permitted every six months but even these were often arbitrarily censored and cut. Over time the permitted number of letters was increased, but the word limit remained, as did the threat of censorship. On his release, Goldberg was given a pack of letters sent by Esme that had been withheld. At the time he had been told they had never arrived. While he was in prison and subsequently, Esme's house in East Finchley in north London provided a haven for many South African political refugees and various other itinerants.
Both of Goldberg's parents died while he was in prison. They had separated and his mother, Annie, had gone to live with Esme and the children in the UK. His father, Sam, remained in South Africa so as to be able to visit Denis. When Sam died, Goldberg was not permitted to attend the funeral. On the day before he was released, Goldberg was allowed, under guard, to visit his father’s grave.
Bram Fischer had led the legal team at the Rivonia Trial. In 1966 he joined Goldberg in prison after being given a life sentence for furthering the aims of communism and conspiracy to overthrow the government. When Fischer became very ill in 1974, Goldberg kept a detailed diary of his medical care. The diary was subsequently smuggled out of prison. After a fall, Fischer was belatedly diagnosed with terminal cancer. Goldberg helped care for him and managed to persuade the prison guards to let him stay with Fischer in his cell overnight. Non-political prisoners rarely served their full term, whereas political prisoners were required to serve every day of their sentence. Only shortly before his death was Fischer allowed to leave the prison, to be put under house arrest at his brother's house in Bloemfontein. A birthday telegram arranged by Goldberg on behalf of the prisoners was not only intercepted, but a prison officer told Goldberg that he would charge him for communicating with a prisoner without permission.