Hilda Bernstein, anti-apartheid activist

HILDA Bernstein, an anti-apartheid activist and author whose husband was tried for treason alongside Nelson Mandela, has died.

She was 91. Bernstein died of heart failure at her home in Cape Town.”The liberation movement mourns a tireless political activist whose lifelong commitment to the cause of the South African people will continue as an inspiration for generations to come,” the ruling African National Congress said in a statement.Bernstein’s husband, Rusty, and Mandela were tried along with other anti-apartheid activists in the infamous Rivonia Trial in 1964.Mandela received a sentence of life imprisonment, while Rusty Bernstein was the only defendant acquitted and freed.But police harassment made life afterward so difficult for the Bernsteins that the couple was forced into exile, leaving their children behind.They crossed the border to Botswana on foot – a journey described in Hilda Bernstein’s book ‘The World That Was Ours’.In exile, Hilda Bernstein was an active member of the ANC and a regular speaker for the Anti-Apartheid Movement group in Britain and abroad.The couple eventually settled in Britain but returned to South Africa after the 1994 democratic elections that made Mandela the country’s president.Both Hilda and Rusty felt they were part of the luckiest generation, to have lived to see the end of apartheid and victory for the ANC, a cause they had both dedicated their lives to.Hilda Bernstein was a founding member of the Federation of South African Women, the first non-racial women’s organisation in South Africa.She also was a writer and artist whose work has been used as book jackets and illustrations, posters and cards for the AAM.Bernstein was born in London in 1915.Her father was a Bolshevik, who left the family for good when Hilda was 10 to return to the Soviet Union.Hilda left school to work, before emigrating to South Africa in 1933 aged 18, working in advertising, publishing and journalism.She soon became caught up in the intense political turmoil caused by the rise of fascism in Europe, and joined the youth branch of the Labour Party.By 1940, becoming increasingly aware of apartheid, she left for the Communist Party, the only organisation with no racial segregation.She served on both the district committee and national executive.A fiery orator, she served as a city councillor in Johannesburg from 1943 to 1946 – the only communist elected to public office in a “whites only” vote.As the only communist to achieve this, she was able to use her position to publicise the injustices of apartheid.She and her husband were active in the early days of the South African Communist Party and the ANC.They both suffered banning and detention by the apartheid state.Rusty Bernstein died in 2002.Nampa-APBernstein died of heart failure at her home in Cape Town.”The liberation movement mourns a tireless political activist whose lifelong commitment to the cause of the South African people will continue as an inspiration for generations to come,” the ruling African National Congress said in a statement.Bernstein’s husband, Rusty, and Mandela were tried along with other anti-apartheid activists in the infamous Rivonia Trial in 1964.Mandela received a sentence of life imprisonment, while Rusty Bernstein was the only defendant acquitted and freed.But police harassment made life afterward so difficult for the Bernsteins that the couple was forced into exile, leaving their children behind.They crossed the border to Botswana on foot – a journey described in Hilda Bernstein’s book ‘The World That Was Ours’.In exile, Hilda Bernstein was an active member of the ANC and a regular speaker for the Anti-Apartheid Movement group in Britain and abroad.The couple eventually settled in Britain but returned to South Africa after the 1994 democratic elections that made Mandela the country’s president.Both Hilda and Rusty felt they were part of the luckiest generation, to have lived to see the end of apartheid and victory for the ANC, a cause they had both dedicated their lives to.Hilda Bernstein was a founding member of the Federation of South African Women, the first non-racial women’s organisation in South Africa.She also was a writer and artist whose work has been used as book jackets and illustrations, posters and cards for the AAM.Bernstein was born in London in 1915.Her father was a Bolshevik, who left the family for good when Hilda was 10 to return to the Soviet Union.Hilda left school to work, before emigrating to South Africa in 1933 aged 18, working in advertising, publishing and journalism.She soon became caught up in the intense political turmoil caused by the rise of fascism in Europe, and joined the youth branch of the Labour Party.By 1940, becoming increasingly aware of apartheid, she left for the Communist Party, the only organisation with no racial segregation.She served on both the district committee and national executive.A fiery orator, she served as a city councillor in Johannesburg from 1943 to 1946 – the only communist elected to public office in a “whites only” vote.As the only communist to achieve this, she was able to use her position to publicise the injustices of apartheid.She and her husband were active in the early days of the South African Communist Party and the ANC.They both suffered banning and detention by the apartheid state.Rusty Bernstein died in 2002.Nampa-AP