Apartheid, legalized racism to the extreme, tore apart South Africa for decades and only recently ended in 1994. The stories that survivors have to tell are powerful examples of the strength of the human spirit and fight for justice.
While drinking tea together after dinner my host mom Mina shared this story with me about her friend Anne:
*note: this is paraphrased as close as possible to her exact words
“Anne was always the most outspoken of us. She was gentle and kind and loving but she could not stand for injustice. As a teacher she would talk against [Apartheid] in her classrooms and was outspoken at school meetings. I was in the marches but she was a leader. They went after the leaders.
Anne lived alone; they came in the middle of the night. It was ten days after she was in my wedding, 1985. They took her to prison and put her in a tiny cell to break her spirit. Anna and I would sew short messages on paper into the hems of t-shirts and send them to her. She knew to find them; they helped to keep her strong. We were never allowed to see her so instead we asked a Swedish pastor serving at the prison where her cell was and would stand outside and shout to her from the street side. When police came by to ask what we were doing we pretended that we were waiting for a komvi (van) to come.
While she was there I found out that I was pregnant and wanted to tell her. I stood at the street and shouted the message to her, tears running down my face. Anna was beside me, telling me not to let the police see my tears and yelled encouragements to Anne to not let them break her spirit. We asked the Swedish pastor what we could do to help and he encouraged us to keep fighting, marching, and signing petitions.
They had no official charges against her and Anne was released after six months. She returned home in the middle of the night and we immediately drove the 2 hours to go see her and celebrate. Anne was so skinny it looked unhealthy. But they hadn’t crushed her spirit.”
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