What Similarity between the life of Nelson
Mandela and Anne Frank.
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
“Nelson played a key role, not just because he was accused number one, but as part of the defense,” Goldberg recalled. Mandela was a trained lawyer and studied at the University of Witwatersrand, where he was the only native African student. “Together with [fellow Struggle stalwart] Walter Sisulu, he set the tone of what our defense would be.
Nelson Mandela and his former boss Lazer Sidelsky (photo credit: courtesy Barry (Dov) Sidelsky
Nelson Mandela and his former boss Lazer Sidelsky (photo credit: courtesy Barry (Dov) Sidelsky
“The apartheid government was attempting to show what terrorists we were and we would turn it around into a show trial and show that the apartheid state was the criminal.”
Goldberg remembered the “dead silence” at the conclusion of Mandela’s famous four-hour speech from the dock just before sentencing, during which he declared himself prepared to die for his ideals. “It was the way it was delivered – a quiet statement of principle and very effective, because we all knew what was coming,” he said, referring to the expectation that the accused would receive the death sentence.
“It was a moment of tremendous elation, I have to tell you, because of the sheer stature of the man – it’s not just his tallness and his elegance, but his whole bearing of pride, of determination. To my knowledge, he never once relied on his royal lineage to bolster his authority.
‘It was a moment of tremendous elation because of the sheer stature of the man’
“He relied on the fact that he was an intellectual, a reader, an analyst and very persuasive. I liked him for his smile, his cheerfulness, his determination that we would be free, never giving up,” Goldberg recalled.
“A thoroughly modern person, capable of not standing still in his thinking; calling for an armed struggle and having achieved the point of negotiations, saying, ‘Let’s stop fighting, let’s negotiate. That’s what we promised to do in 1961, so now let’s do it.’ I found the principled steadfastness of the man tremendously admirable.”
Goldberg last met Mandela over lunch more than a year ago and experienced his “fondness for recalling old times and old friends.” A standout memory for Goldberg, however, goes back to the time of the Rivonia Trial when Mandela waved his finger at him during a legal consultation, saying: “Denis, when you talk communism to our people, you have to talk about South Africa and not European social development – our people know nothing about it.”
“I was convinced he was sure that they were going to hang him and he wanted me to understand and pass on his message that when it comes to political theory, it has to relate to our conditions,” said Goldberg.
As Mandela lay critically ill in hospital some six months ago, his wife, Graça Machel, invited fellow Struggle stalwarts, including Goldberg, to his bedside.
Mandela and the Jewish community
Mervyn Smith, who led the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the 70,000-strong community’s umbrella organization, at the time of Mandela’s presidency (1994 -1999), described the statesman’s relationship with the community as “very warm.” On the many occasions that Mandela met with the board, the talk was “direct and open,” Smith recalled.
Nelson Mandela salutes the crowd at the Green and Sea Point Hebrew Congregation in Cape Town on a visit shortly after being elected South Africa’s president in 1994. Joining Mandela, from left, are Rabbi Jack Steinhorn; Israel’s ambassador to South Africa, Alon Liel; Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris; and Mervyn Smith, chairman of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. (photo credit: SA Rochlin Archives, SAJBD)
Nelson Mandela salutes the crowd at the Green and Sea Point Hebrew Congregation in Cape Town on a visit shortly after being elected South Africa’s president in 1994. Joining Mandela, from left, are Rabbi Jack Steinhorn; Israel’s ambassador to South Africa, Alon Liel; Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris; and Mervyn Smith, chairman of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. (photo credit: SA Rochlin Archives, SAJBD)
Smith recalled the 1994 opening of an exhibition on Anne Frank, where Mandela said that the young girl’s diary was an inspiration to him and his colleagues during their imprisonment on Robben Island, the former leper colony and prison where the apartheid government’s black political prisoners were incarcerated and where Mandela was held for 18 of his 27 years behind bars.
“He’d had a very meaningful interaction with Jews during his professional apprenticeship [with a Jewish law firm in the early 1940s, a time when it was extremely difficult for a black person to obtain such a position], during the Struggle and he had always had great respect for the Jewish community,” said Smith.
Mandela and Afrika Tikkun