by Mervyn Blumberg

posted 27 Feb 2024

 

My Dad Charlie crossed the Zambezi in the mid 30’s having been declared persona non grata in South Africa after arriving at Cape Town without a visa. He was looking for a safe haven to escape the Nazi persecution-taking place in Europe at the time.

 

I like to believe that he had some foresight of what was to come, however I believe that his decision to go to South Africa was not only driven by the events unfolding in Europe but also due to economic circumstance. South Africa was the land of choice and opportunity for many Lithuanian Jews as there was already a large settled Jewish community there as well as my Uncle Fred, a younger brother and photographer, who had left the ’shtetl’ some years before. My father actually had eight brothers and sisters; six were murdered in the Holocaust. I know very little of life back in the old country except that the family were Bakers and all including my Grandparents were annihilated.

 

As I recall from stories told long ago, when the steamship arrived in the Cape of Good Hope his papers were not appropriate given that South Africa was restricting Jewish immigration (even though he was white and white immigration was being welcomed) and he was ordered deported. The steamship line refused return passage to Memel. How he got from Memel to Liverpool the ship’s origin, remains a mystery that I still have to unravel. He was therefore imprisoned in a local jail and every time a Government vehicle was headed North, he was herded into that vehicle for the trip to the Limpopo, which formed the natural border between the Union of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. My Dad always spoke well of his detainers and held no malice.

 

He traveled North from Beit Bridge, through Bulawayo to the Victoria Falls on the Zambesi, the border between Northern and Souhern Rhodesia.. Livingston was a familiar name recognised from school history books, so that seemed like as good a place as any, to start to build a new life. There was also a small Jewish community and he even found  ’lantsman’, the brothers Charlie and Ben Robinson.  The Diaspora still holds a magical awe for me. To find people from your hometown in Darkest Africa never ceases to amaze. He got a job as a ‘cowboy’ going off into the bush to purchase cattle from the natives in the bush to sell to the local butcheries. How the Jews came to settle in Livingstone in itself is an interesting story. 

 

He then moved further north to the Copperbelt a few years later and a short stint underground on the mines convinced him that being a mole wasn’t in his blood so he took a job in the ‘native’ township mine store. Even there he was to meet Max Katz, a fellow Lithuanian, who was on the same steamship to South Africa. Max and his two younger brothers’ Chaim a.k.a Ginger (Geller), and Jacob were to become instrumental in my upbringing. Max died of cancer in Ndola some two weeks before Dad. They came together and left together and are buried side by side in a foreign field that became home to so many ‘displaced’ young Jews.

 

 I was conceived in Kitwe sometime in ‘46 and due to perceived problems with Mothers pregnancy she was advised that a ‘proper’ hospital in South Africa was appropriate and hence I arrived into this world uneventfully in Johannesburg; a quirk of fate that was to become a problem some 24 years later. I guess at this point I should introduce my mother Doreen, without whose help I would not have been conceived.

 

 We returned to Kitwe by train two weeks later; the first of many wonderful trips which,, were to be amongst of the most fond highlights of my life.

 

My Mom Doreen was also born in Lithuania and was brought up by her mother and a stepfather having lost her father at age four. She too lost her parents and two stepbrothers to the Nazi Invasion. Eighty percent of Jews were murdered by their Lithuanian brethren. A younger sister survived by virtue of being hidden by Gentiles. She immigrated to Israel from Lithuania in the mid ’70’s. I since learned from her son Eli that she passed away. I did have the good fortune of meeting her on a visit to Israel in 1985 with my mother. I believe my mother was sent to South Africa at age 13 to live with cousins in Alberton due to economic circumstance and perhaps also in part due to the fact that the stepfather wished it so. As a father today of three wonderful children, I can only imagine the heartbreak felt by my maternal Grandmother.

 

In 1945 her family heard of young Jewish Boys up North looking for companionship and sent her to Ndola, a train journey of three days and nights. Until that time these young Jewish men availed themselves of the company of Polish ladies at a ‘displaced’ persons camp near Luanshya and I can remember hearing stories related between these cronies about the ”hot” Polish women. 

 

Returning north to the Copperbelt a few years later and a short stint underground on the mines convinced him that being a mole wasn’t in his blood so he took a job in the ‘native’ township mine store. Even there he was to meet Max Katz, a fellow Lithuanian, who was on the same steamship to South Africa. Max and his two younger brothers’ Chaim a.k.a Ginger (Geller), and Jacob were to become instrumental in my upbringing. Max died of cancer in Ndola some two weeks before Dad. They came together and left together and are buried side by side in a foreign field that became home to so many ‘displaced’ young Jews.

 

  I was conceived in Kitwe sometime in ‘46 and due to perceived problems with Mothers pregnancy she was advised that a ‘proper’ hospital in South Africa was appropriate and hence I arrived into this world uneventfully in Johannesburg; a quirk of fate that was to become a problem some 24 years later. I guess at this point I should introduce my mother Doreen, without whose help I would not have been conceived.

 

  We returned to Kitwe by train two weeks later; the first of many wonderful trips which,, were to be amongst of the most fond highlights of my life.

 

Doreen was also born in Lithuania and was brought up by her mother and a stepfather having lost her father at age four. She too lost her parents and two stepbrothers to the Nazi Invasion. Eighty percent of Jews were murdered by their Lithuanian brethren. A younger sister survived by virtue of being hidden by Gentiles. She immigrated to Israel from Lithuania in the mid ’70’s. I since learned from her son Eli that she passed away. I did have the good fortune of meeting her on a visit to Israel in 1985 with my mother. I believe my mother was sent to South Africa at age 13 to live with cousins in Alberton due to economic circumstance and perhaps also in part due to the fact that the stepfather wished it so. As a father today of three wonderful children, I can only imagine the heartbreak felt by my maternal Grandmother.

 

In 1945 her family heard of young Jewish Boys up North looking for companionship and sent her to Ndola, a train journey of three days and nights. Until that time these young Jewish men availed themselves of the company of Polish ladies at a ‘displaced’ persons camp near Luanshya and I can remember hearing stories related between these cronies about the ”hot” Polish women. 

 

Obviously Doreen and Charlie must have hit it off although I still can’t fathom out why and they were married in the Kitwe Synagogue on March 4th, 1945 (or it could have been 1946). They must have had sex even though I still believe I was born of Immaculate Conception on May 6th, 1947.

 

We lived in Kitwe until I was five (1947-1951), when my Dad was fired, from his job at the mine store in the native township by the Jewish manager for a reason I cannot recall. Just as well it was a Jewish boss otherwise it would have been too easy to blame anti-semitism. I don’t recall much of those early years except of what I have been told was spoiled rotten by my parents and the extended family (close friends, mostly unmarried and childless) and my parents showed love and affection by giving me all that I desired and was affordable given that my parents were poor. I guess I also got hugs and kisses then although I don’t recall. I quickly learned to use this to my benefit and from all accounts became an obnoxious little brat.

 

Apart from my extended Jewish family a very important person came into my life at that time and was to remain an integral part of my growing up. His name was Ben and he was our cook and house servant and became my surrogate (black) father. Every family in Northern Rhodesia that was privileged by being born white was able to employ servants no matter how poor they were. The richer one became the more servants one had. These wonderful people usually lived behind the garage of the whites modest homes although usually on tracts of land at least a quarter of an acre or more.

 

At age 5 we moved to Ndola when Dad bought the Rendezvous Cafe/Restaurant (later renamed Regent) on Cecil Avenue. Most kids in Ndola will remember it as it was around the corner from the Bijou cinema and was mobbed by them for homemade ice cream (vanilla and chocolate only) during interval.  I still am disappointed every time I discover a new ice cream that I can’t recapture that wonderful taste of Dads Vanilla made with fresh cream and eggs and the purest vanilla extract.

 

Ben and his family moved with us to Ndola, even though we had no home and lived withMax & Rose Katz for a time before Dad was able to rent a flat above a store on Cecil Avenue in anawful building full of cockroaches. It is strange what memories come to mind as I write. H.P.Sauce!!! I had it first with Aunt Rose. The Houses of Parliament on the label; the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and that pop up book that I loved to read while sitting on the toilet.

 

Dad ventured into the Taxi & Car Hire business which spawned a service station and in the mid ‘60’s burgeoned into a trucking venture which participated in the “hell run” to beat sanctions transporting petrol from Tanzania. As the folks established themselves we moved twice more before they built a house on Hurstbourne Road, which was about one and a half miles from the centre of town but was unpaved with a septic tank and no electricity.

 

Mom and Dad worked hard and long hours at the cafe to keep their three-bedroom home and Ben became my confidant and friend. He used to sit by my bedside when I was sick and I loved him bathing me. He would tell me all sorts of stories and stay close when the heavy thunderstorms would pelt heavily on the corrugated tin roof with a thunderous roar accompanied by the inevitable blackout. He would scare the sh-t out of me by translating the drums steadily beating their sinister message from the native compound (suburb) a couple of miles away. This was especially disconcerting during the Mau Mau insurrection in Kenya of 1955 and the first time in Africa that the blacks began to assert there rights to independence.

 

Kindergarten at Ndola Convent was my initiation to a formal Education. Sister Marbles and Sister Digna, bless them and may their souls rest in peace, attempted to crucify me for passing wind in assembly   This was my second encounter with the Lord Jesus; the first of course being the immaculate conception referred to before. The mother superior stopped what she was doing and asked the hushed assembly for the doer of that dastardly deed to own up. Well all eyes were on me and the colour of my ears gave me away. The Mother Superior asked  ’ the disrespectful Jewish boy ’ to leave assembly at once and wait at her office. For the life of me I can’t remember what happened thereafter and the punishment meted out to me. What was a spoiled Jewish brat doing in a convent anyway? Thank God mom saw fit to send me to Ndola Primary soon thereafter.

 

We were part of a small but active Jewish community (40 families) and mostly through school I was the only Jew in the class. At any given time there were only at a maximum seven or eight other Jewish children and as a result I was very assimilated and only recall encountering one overt case of anti – Semitism and that was in standard 4 when my best friend called me a ‘bloody Jew’.  We were both the shortest boys in the class and therefore well matched for a fight that took place at lunch. I won and remember that I didn’t hear one remark about my being Jewish from the taunting crowd that gathered in the traditional circle to watch the schoolyard brawl. 

 

I did use the Jewish excuse whenever possible to get me out of attending choir practice for the annual Christmas carol pageant. Reading comics alone in class was more fun. I wasn’t able to escape the daily assembly though and sang “Onwards Jewish soldiers marching as to war with the Star of David going on before” whenever the occasion arose. I can still recite the Lords Prayer having done it irreligiously for thirteen years.

 

I led a very sheltered life growing up in Ndola, especially before my brother Edwin was born in November of 1955.  Edwin’s birth occurred on Guy Fawkes day (he attempted to blow up the British houses of parliament and was burned at the stake) We dressed up as Guy and went around the neighbourhood collecting money to buy fireworks – “penny for the guy” – and I was pretty pissed off that he disrupted our festivities scheduled for that night. My mother loosened her apron strings a teensy weensy bit after that. I still wasn’t allowed to ride my bike to school and my parents or a driver (remember Dad was in the Taxi business) was always dutifully there to pick me up for lunch at 12:45pm, which was the end of the school day. We started at 7.30am and everyone went home for lunch and a siesta. All business closed from 12.30 -2.00pm to escape from the noonday heat and the place was like a ghost town between those hours. Afternoon activities such as sports took place around 3.30pm. My social life was very much focused around the Jewish community and the shul although I did have a few gentile friends that I played with. I mostly played with the other dozen or so Jewish kids and we met regularly at the shul for the childrens’ service on Saturdays and Habonim on Sunday. We would often end up playing cricket in the shul grounds and I was always one of the last to be picked for one of the sides. 

 

We were not a particularly religious family although we did celebrate the high holidays by going to shul and usually having big dinners afterwards at our home or that of the Katzs’, Esras or occasionally the Elkaims’. There were always at least a dozen people at the dinner table. Bens cooking was the best and he cooked the heavy Jewish food better than most others did and he was always in demand by the Jewish ladies if he wasn’t cooking for us. Dad did occasionally go to shul but hardly participated in the services. He could usually be found outside having a smoke break and socialising. The Katz brothers took on the responsibility for my Jewish upbringing and would pick me up every Friday night for shul in the vanette and drop me back afterward. I never protested, as I loved riding in the back of the van, standing holding onto the gutter of the cab with the wind blowing in my face. At the time both Jacob and Max were married but childless and Ginger was a bachelor, so I was the surrogate child. No wonder I was spoiled – so many fathers. The shul was about an eight-minute walk from our house. Jacob led the service and was probably the most religious as he kept a kosher home which was no mean feat given that they imported the meat from Johannesburg by air some 1200 miles away. After I had my bar mitzvah and began to assert myself in those teenage years I did not want to go to shul as often but somehow always got that call at the eleventh hour to be the tenth man for the minyan. I could never refuse and would dutifully walk there.

 

Max took the responsibility of my Judaism very seriously and always interrogated me as he suspected my Dad was feeding me bacon, which was indeed true, but I would never admit to it. Max was too kind to be a good interrogator, but the inquisition took place regularly. Dad would take me to the cafe before school and cook up the best bacon and eggs as I wasn’t a very good eater in those days and of course the fatter you were the healthier you were.  One vivid memory that I have is sailing paper sailboats in the rain gutters on the side of the roads. During summer storms were very predictable. By two in the afternoon the sky would turn black and then almost immediately the heavens opened up with a violent thundershower. Within minutes the gutters became a torrent. I would rush out under the canopy that was a feature of all the buildings, make a paper boat, put it into the rainwater and run at a feverish pace beside it while it was swept away by the gushing torrent of water, only never to be seen again as it disappeared into the drain. I imagined it being swept out down to the Zambesi and on to the ocean, wondering in which far off country it finally made land fall.

 

Our front door was always open and Sundays was a big social day, mostly with guests from other towns on the Copperbelt visiting for the day. Big lunches followed by the men occupying all the beds for the afternoon nap and the women retreating to one of the rooms to while away the hours catching up on gossip while the room filled with smoke until the air was so thick that it resembled the notorious London fog. I wonder if that legacy will haunt us now that we are more aware of the dangers of second hand smoke and cholesterol. It seems that in those days we did all the wrong things from a health perspective. When the men awoke it was time for tea and Moms famous Chocolate or cheese cake  (usually both) and home baked cookies, and then a Sunday drive to the airport or to see some new house that was being built.  

 

There wasn’t much else to do unless you were into sports, which, seemed to be the thing that the ‘goyim’ did as well as drinking a lot of Castle or Lion beer. The drive usually ended at someone’s house as long as they didn’t have visitors that the adults did not want to socialise with. Visits were mostly unannounced and usually ended after dinner when it was time for bed and school the next day. The exact same events took place when we would drive to other towns on the Copperbelt to visit friends.

 

The population of Ndola was about ten thousand whites, seventy thousand natives (blacks) and about ten thousand others (colourds – people of mixed descent and east Indians). Today it seems very unjust for me to talk about people in those terms but I grew up in a segregated society and I didn’t even question it until I was in my mid teens.  The town was divided into segregated suburbs each group with their own distinct neighbourhood. There were even two shopping areas – one for whites and the other known as the second class shops usually owned by east Indians and never frequented by whites although non whites were permitted to shop in the white stores. The almighty pound ruled supreme. It was just the way it was and I didn’t know any better. I don’t think I really treated anyone differently and our servants were extended family. By this time we had a cook, Ben, a ’house boy’, Paul (who was at least thirty) and a ’garden boy’. They each lived with their families in a small four-roomed dwelling behind the garage on our half-acre property. We were by no means well off and I even recall my parents having to rent out one of the three bedrooms in our house to make ends meet, but we still had servants  – so go figure. 

 

As a result of always having guests and servants, Edwin and I were never short of playmates as we would just go into the backyard and play with one of the picaninis (as black children were known). There was however a definite distinction and they never came into the house. Ben once caught the garden boy using our toilet and beat the living daylights out of him and reported him to the’ missus’, my mother.

 

Food and clothing were bought or given to them by my parents and most walked barefoot because shoes were only intended for Sunday best or if guests were present. Imagine grown men dressed in white uniforms walking around the house barefoot. I marveled at the hardness of their soles and calluses on their feet and was awed by the fact that they would walk for miles on boiling hot tarmac with bare feet. Women always walked behind the men carrying picaninis (babies) in a shawl wrapped around there backs with a big pot or other carrying utensil balanced on their heads. Often a family of four or more would be riding on one bicycle. The Butcheries would actually sell inferior cuts as ‘boys’ or ‘servants meat’. God what a world and yet even today I feel revulsion for these things and feel embarrassed to write it, I wouldn’t trade those growing up experiences for anything. It was accepted as a way of life and I didn’t know any other existed in those early years.

 

My fathers business turned the backyard and garage into a place where the rental cars and taxis were repaired and thus the place was always a hub of activity which included three dogs, two cats, an aviary, a rabbit hutch and many free range chickens as well as the occasional duck. We even had a small duiker (buck) as a resident for a while. It seems so disorderly as I describe it, yet it wasn’t that way at all and my mother took great pride in her rose garden, rockery, and gardenia bushes. The backyard had three or four pawpaw trees, an avocado tree, a mango tree and various other fruit trees including a vegetable garden. We used to pick mangoes as we walked down the streets. I can remember taking over-ripe paw-paws down the street and offering them to strangers. Unbeknown to them we had inserted a fire cracker with a long fuse into it and we would light it when they thanked us for our kindness and as soon as they were on there way we would run like hell and burst out laughing when we heard the explosion. Of course it didn’t work every time. We were to chicken to hang around to see the result but we were never caught. Before the road in front of our house was paved it was diverted around a huge anthill at least twenty feet high or so it seemed which served as the neighbourhood fort until it was bulldozed, much to our disappointment, in the name of progress.

 

There were often times when I would arrive home to find Ben running around chasing a chicken with a machete in order to prepare the evening dinner. I t always intrigued me that after its head had been cleanly severed from the body that the headless torso would continue running until it came to rest against an immovable object. The thing I hated most that awful smell of wet feathers and blood when the carcass would be plunged in boiling water to enable the feathers to be plucked. The fact that been was able to catch the chicken amazed me as I always considered him to be an old man. He probably looked a lot older than his years as I believe he was an alcoholic and can remember my mother firing him on many occasions against my protest for showing up to work drunk. Ben would always storm off very indignant but his drunken gait would confirm his state. He was always returned the next day as though nothing ever happened, after all, how do you fire family.

 

On one occasion he was found by the police in a drunken stupor and brought to my parents restaurant to confirm identification as of course he insisted he wasn’t drunk and suggested that my mother would bail him out. The police decided to charge him for being drunk and disorderly and marched him off to the police station between two burly constables with this five year old in tow dragging at Bens feet and pleading tearfully for his release.

 

The big events of the week for me were being allowed to attend the bi – weekly cinema (bioscope as we called it) matinees. In the early days there was a ramshackle old Movie house (of the Beaches Fox type) called the Bijou just around the corner from my Dads Cafe. I was a kind of celebrity amongst the kids as I would go there at interval between the shorts (most often a newsreel called Movietone News and cartoons or the Three Stooges) and the feature (Cowboys an Indians, Cops and Robbers or the occasional war flick) and stuff my pockets with sweets (candy) and make myself popular by giving them out. No wonder Dad never made money at that business but he did make the best vanilla ice cream in the world. To this day I still try to recapture the taste with every new ice cream manufacturer that introduces their product to the marketplace. Somehow that taste memory will never be surpassed.

 

My best friend in those days was Benjy Wulfson (a nephew of the Lowenthals) and due to his influence we were able to sit in the balcony at matinees, which was closed to other kids due to unruly behaviour. We felt like kings. Apart from our parents being friendly, I guess Benjy was my best friend as I was always able to beat him at marbles and he was a source of replenishment for those lost at school to others better than me. I was also able to beat him at wrestling even though he was a year younger, two inches taller and a ton heavier. He was a great sport though as I broke his finger in one of our tussles and he told his parents that he fell. I believe his folks believed differently given that his dad was an orthopedic surgeon. His dad also had one of those full skeletons at home so it was kind of fun visiting and being scared to death.

 

Benjy’s aunt also had a swimming pool that we frequented on those hot summer afternoons.  Apart from the Freeds (the chazan and my bar mitzvah tutor) whom my family was not so friendly with, this was the only private pool that I knew of. The town did have a public pool that was used by the schools for swimming galas and where I learned to swim. My swim teacher was a Mr. Labarbe who had previously been a sergeant major in the army and therefore discipline was a keyword.  It seemed that he believed swimming lessons were being thrown in the deep end and if you made it to the side you had progressed to Level two. Level two meant jumping of the ten-metre board and if you survived you were a graduate. Those who didn’t make the grade repeated levels one and two ad infinitum or faced humiliation before ones peers by being made to blow bubbles in the baby pool. Of course he knew us all by name and when we were at the pool for recreation we all shuddered as his voice boomed over the loudspeaker castigating us for some minor infraction of the rules. Hence my long friendship with Benjy and the bliss of his families private pool. 

 

Social events such as Bar Mitzvahs and weddings were celebrated and attended by all of the Jews on the whole Copperbelt. The Copperbelt consisted of six or seven towns close to the border of the Belgian Congo (Ndola, Luanshya, Kitwe, Mufulira, Chingola and Bancroft) all within a radius of about seventy miles and their reason for being was the production of copper. (Northern Rhodesia was the second largest producer of copper in the world those days.) My Bar Mitzvah was no exception and every Jewish family as well as some gentiles (business associates and acquaintances of my parents) were invited. I believe my parents tried to outdo all previous events of this nature as it was held in the poshest hotel, The Savoy, on the Copperbelt. Most other like events were usually held in the local shul hall and I remember them as being wonderful social events. So to this day I question why was this necessary. It seemed so unlike my father who usually wore an open necked shirt, khaki shots within an inch of the knee and long socks pulled up to an inch of the knee. On the other hand I do remember him dressing up in a fine cut suit with Italian leather shoes and a silk tie or bowtie to attend some function or other. He always looked so debonair on these occasions and remember women swooning to dance with him. My mother was resplendent in her tailor made dress and mink stole. (Mink in the heart of Africa, even if it was June and winter ?) I think they wanted to believe that they were doing far better than they really were, financially speaking. Needless to say the Bar Mitzvah was a hit and was talked about at over many a cup of tea and so therefore had the desired effect. I don’t remember that much but I don’t believe I gave a stellar performance either in shul or with my speech at the evening affair.

 

My mother dutifully took us on holiday every two years. It was necessary for our  health and wellbeing. These were really fun trips to either Johannesburg or Cape Town. Either destination required a train trip of three or four days and these trips certainly standout as a highlight of my life. In the early days the carriages were paneled in wood with open balconies at either end and pulled by monstrous powerful black engines that were quite intimidating to stand beside. At the start of the journey everything was quite clean only to be covered in soot and grime at the end. The majesty of the green leather seats and overstuffed pillows was only to be outdone by the wonderful decor of the dining cars with tables set with white starched tablecloths and silver cutlery so heavy that when I was young my wrists would hurt by the end of the three course meal. The waiters on Rhodesia Railways were black men resplendent in their white uniforms and red Fezs’. The maitre ‘d was always white as was the conductor and Engineers. They kept control!!!  Wasn’t Colonial Africa majestic – if you were fortunate to be born white or European as we ’mezungu’ were called. Not to forget ’Bwana’ and ’Madam’. Again the departure was an event with many friends participating in the send off all bearing gifts to help while away the hours with pity expressed for my mother having to deal with this unruly child. My cheeks were pinched so many times with a warning to be good that I believe everyone used the opportunity to exude that ounce of flesh in retaliation. But the gifts were worth the torture.

 

Moise Tshombe had decided to secede the Province of Katanga from Zaire which was until Independence the Belgian Congo. The border was at its closest point only four miles away and to many of the blacks this border did not exist in reality as their villages may have been in the Congo but bush paths didn’t recognise lines drawn on maps. There was no border post per se. The nearest actual border post was reached through a dirt (gravel) road about twenty miles away in the small town of Sakania. At this border post everything changed – people spoke French and drove on the right (wrong) side of the road. Cars were left hand drive and either French or American. The majority cars in Northern Rhodesia were of British origin at that time although the more affluent tended to drive Cadillacs, Buicks, Pontiacs or Chevrolets or the American Ford Equivalent. Small trucks (vanettes) on the other hand were mostly North American although there were a lot of Bedfords and Commer vehicles around, and Land Rovers were abundant.

 

The whites were very supportive of Tshombe as he was perceived to be pro Western and probably backed by the C.I.A. and the Americans were the ‘good guys’. They certainly always were in the Westerns and we were indoctrinated to believe it. The bad guys North of Katanga were also influenced by the ‘commies’. There were also a lot of white pro western mercenaries (Colonel Mad Mike Hoar and his band of merry men) fighting for Tshombe. The result of this civil war meant that many white refugees fled as Mobutu and his communist supported army gained the upper hand and approached Elisabethville. My Dad was very involved with the foreign press who used Ndola as a base and his rental car fleet and drivers served as Transport Command for this army of correspondents and journalists assisting in getting the dispatches out to the world. A couple of his cars were blown up and  the occupants killed on the outskirts of Elisabethville. They knew him by his first name and always greeted him with genuine affection and some big name fellows whose names I recognised from the Movie News stayed over at our house as accommodation was scarce. If I am not mistaken and my memory serves me correctly one of those names was Walter Cronkite. Many refugees were also put up by the Jewish community and our verandah (an enclosed porch) had beds all over the place. Many of the refugees were also put up in the shul (synagogue) hall which acted as a logistical headquarters and we would wait there to hear the latest news from the ’front’. Exciting Times.

 

  The only other event during this period that had an influence was the death of President Kennedy.  I could not believe the effect of his death had on my father. It was as though he lost a friend. To this day I don’t know why it affected this simple Lithuanian man eleven thousand miles away so deeply. Television had been introduced in ‘63 and the News was something we all listened to every night. No longer did the Northern News and the radio serve as our only source of information. Even though film of events was usually shown a few days after events the impact was astounding. The tube changed the way people interacted to such a great extent. Visits to friends in the evening was scheduled around TV programs. Even then the art of conversation was lost as people huddled around the twenty three inch black and white box and even the commercials were watched with the same intensity at first until they were repeated and everyone was comfortable that they wouldn’t miss some new product. The evening meal was now served on T.V. tables in front of the television sets and the discourse that took place at the dinner table was no longer. The radio which, served so well till now for entertainment was relegated to the shelf only to be brought out in crisis (such as the ‘six day war’) to listen to the B.B.C. or The Voice of Israel. To be fair the radio was actually still used during the day as T.V. programming was in the evening from 5.30pm to 10.30pm. and we were not very discerning in our choice of which programs to watch. I missed using my imagination to conjure up scenes in my mind to fit the radio plays but it was so easy to let T.V do it for you. 

 

Moise Tshombe had decided to secede the Province of Katanga from Zaire which was until Independence the Belgian Congo. The border was at its closest point only four miles away and to many of the blacks this border did not exist in reality as their villages may have been in the Congo but bush paths didn’t recognise lines drawn on maps. There was no border post per se. The nearest actual border post was reached through a dirt (gravel) road about twenty miles away in the small town of Sakania. At this border post everything changed – people spoke French and drove on the right (wrong) side of the road. Cars were left hand drive and either French or American. The majority cars in Northern Rhodesia were of British origin at that time although the more affluent tended to drive Cadillacs, Buicks, Pontiacs or Chevrolets or the American Ford Equivalent. Small trucks (vanettes) on the other hand were mostly North American although there were a lot of Bedfords and Commer vehicles around, and Land Rovers were abundant.

 

The whites were very supportive of Tshombe as he was perceived to be pro Western and probably backed by the C.I.A. and the Americans were the ‘good guys’. They certainly always were in the Westerns and we were indoctrinated to believe it. The bad guys North of Katanga were also influenced by the ‘commies’. There were also a lot of white pro western mercenaries (Colonel Mad Mike Hoar and his band of merry men) fighting for Tshombe. The result of this civil war meant that many white refugees fled as Mobutu and his communist supported army gained the upper hand and approached Elisabethville. My Dad was very involved with the foreign press who used Ndola as a base and his rental car fleet and drivers served as Transport Command for this army of correspondents and journalists assisting in getting the dispatches out to the world. A couple of his cars were blown up and  the occupants killed on the outskirts of Elisabethville. They knew him by his first name and always greeted him with genuine affection and some big name fellows whose names I recognised from the Movie News stayed over at our house as accommodation was scarce. If I am not mistaken and my memory serves me correctly one of those names was Walter Cronkite. Many refugees were also put up by the Jewish community and our verandah (an enclosed porch) had beds all over the place. Many of the refugees were also put up in the shul (synagogue) hall which acted as a logistical headquarters and we would wait there to hear the latest news from the ’front’. Exciting Times.

 

  The only other event during this period that had an influence was the death of President Kennedy.  I could not believe the effect of his death had on my father. It was as though he lost a friend. To this day I don’t know why it affected this simple Lithuanian man eleven thousand miles away so deeply. Television had been introduced in ‘63 and the News was something we all listened to every night. No longer did the Northern News and the radio serve as our only source of information. Even though film of events was usually shown a few days after events the impact was astounding. The tube changed the way people interacted to such a great extent. Visits to friends in the evening was scheduled around TV programs. Even then the art of conversation was lost as people huddled around the twenty three inch black and white box and even the commercials were watched with the same intensity at first until they were repeated and everyone was comfortable that they wouldn’t miss some new product. The evening meal was now served on T.V. tables in front of the television sets and the discourse that took place at the dinner table was no longer. The radio which, served so well till now for entertainment was relegated to the shelf only to be brought out in crisis (such as the ‘six day war’) to listen to the B.B.C. or The Voice of Israel. To be fair the radio was actually still used during the day as T.V. programming was in the evening from 5.30pm to 10.30pm. and we were not very discerning in our choice of which programs to watch. I missed using my imagination to conjure up scenes in my mind to fit the radio plays but it was so easy to let T.V do it for you.