Used with the kind permission of the editor

I was born on 31 December 1913 and brought up in School Street, Varklian, which was a small town in Latvia, then part of the Russian Tsarist Empire. Varklian is in Latgale Province, regarded as the 'little Switzerland ' of Latvia because of its forests, rivers and lakes. My great, great, great, great grandfather Michael founded Varklian about 350 years ago. Jews from all the villages in the area would get together to make a minyan for the holy days, and he was anxious because they had no synagogue. He organised a deputation to the governor of their district and appealed for land on which to build a Jewish settlement and synagogue.

Those days Jews had no surnames, only their first names like his, Michael. When the governor asked him for his name, he said 'Michail Aleksandiowitch'. The governor said, 'How come you, a Jew, have the same name as the Tsar?' Michael replied: 'Are we not all children of the Tsar?' The governor was impressed and granted the deputation's request. So Jews from neighbouring settlements came to live on the land and built a synagogue. Michael built two houses, a summerhouse, stables, buildings for hay and wood and a big yard opposite the synagogue on the left side of the street, which later became the place where the first Jewish primary school was built.

My grandfather sent my father Simon, his only son, to a Russian gymnasium. This was an exception, as Jewish children were not accepted in Russian schools. Grandfather may have bribed somebody for my father to be accepted. My father told me that the school was ten miles from Varklian, and grandfather would drive him early Monday morning in a horse cart to get him there before 8 a.m. Grandmother would prepare the food for five days: chicken, hard boiled eggs, dried cottage cheese, bread rusks, butter and jam (the jam to drink with cold water), to ensure her son had kosher food. He learned maths, Russian, German and geography. He told me how his teacher dished out physical punishment if the replies to his questions were wrong. In summer when other scholars went swimming in the nearby river, he would go earlier so they could not see he was a Jewish boy.

Father married my mother, Dobe, after her return from Leeds ( England ) where she spent five years with her sisters. I grew up in a cultured home with bookshelves with the Talmud, Yiddish books... I was brought up with 'Tevya de Milcheka' [Shalom Aleichem's famous character on which Fiddler on the Roof is based] and all Peretz's books. But I also read Russian books. I read Nadson. I remember books by Leo Tolstoy as well.

Before father died, he passed on to me booklets published by Jewish publishing houses in Vilna and Warsaw... There were Yiddish booklets on health, on leaders of the Bund, on socialist and communist leaders, you know, biographies. For example, this is the way I got the story of Vera Figner and Rosa Luxemburg. In this way father introduced me to the Jewish [socialist] thinkers... I was a Zionist when father died, but already I was moving away. Father wasn't a Zionist, he was more inclined to socialist ideas.

My father was a close friend to Leibe Yoffe, leading communist and founder of a Jewish Defence League. Leibe Yoffe and my father would go together at night to guard the Jewish homes. Father was a progressive man, religious, went to synagogue not only on the Jewish holy days, also on Friday evenings and Saturdays. He could read German and Russian, which was quite exceptional for those days. He was an intelligent man. I remember how neighbours would come to our home to discuss with him the 1905 Russian Revolution, the 1905 Russo-Japanese War and the 1917 Revolution.

He became a teacher to help young people with Russian, German and maths and also had a cheyder where Jewish boys studied the Talmud, prepared them for bar mitzvah etc. Mother and father had five daughters and one son, as well as two daughters from his first wife who died in childbirth. These were Anna and Tanya, both killed by Nazis and thrown into a mass grave - I went to Riga to see it. He asked my sister Dora and me to attend his cheyder after school to study the Talmud, which we did.

After the First World War, which was followed in Latvia by a civil war, the Jewish school, primary and secondary, was reopened, with Leibe Yoffe as the principal. On 1 September 1920, when I went out to play with the other children, I found nearly all had gone to school. I returned to mother and told her I too wanted to go to school.

Mother said: 'You are too young - only children of seven years are accepted. You are not even six.' I went out and followed the children. The teachers were busy in a big classroom with a Black board and chalk, examining children to establish in which standard to place them. I stood in the queue, was examined in writing and sums, and placed in standard one. This was due to the fact that an aunt and uncle came to stay with us during the civil war - they were war refugees - and the aunt was a teacher. In our big yard, which had sand for the children to play, she taught me with a stick to write the alphabet. I was placed above some of the children with whom I played...

Mother complained to father that I disobeyed her and went to school. She didn't want me to go to school yet. A family discussion ensued. I demanded to be allowed to return to school - father and my sister Mary, who was in standard four, supported me. I was so happy. It gave me a sense of confidence.

My father died of a heart attack when I was twelve years old. Leibe Yoffe came to our house to give his condolences, and said to me: 'Rochella, I know that you have an inquisitive mind and that you were always asking your father questions. Please remember to be free to come to me and ask me questions. I'll be only too happy to reply to you.' This was a very great thing to me.

Leibe Yoffe, with other teachers who had valued my father, came the week after to discuss with my mother how she would bring up four young daughters, Mary, Dora, Rachel and Minnie who was only seven years old. They suggested to mother that they would every month donate from their salaries to help her. Mother said thank you, I do not want any charity. I have my own two hands. I propose to make a bakery. I ask you just to help me by buying my bread. They offered her money to start the bakery. She told them, thank you I have saved up money. Mother started the bakery. Mary and Dora helped mother to knead the bread and I was assigned to do the books - write the cost of the flour, salt, yeast and wood and keep the book of income from customers. The bakery flourished.

Q: What was -your position on Zionism?

I believed then that socialism is the [correct response] to anti-Semitism. Earlier, at school, I had been a Zionist with my older sister Getty and brother Isher. I often helped the Zionist organisation with office work. When the Jerusalem University was opened — it was in 1926 — the Zionist organisation made a big celebration of it. They invited our school to send a speaker. I was chosen. I prepared my talk on higher education. I made an observation that we are celebrating the opening of the university in Jerusalem, but if there would be a university opened in Timbuktu we should celebrate it as much. Because wherever a university is opened, it is a big candle to lead to a better understanding between human beings. My teacher in algebra was a very strong Zionist, she did not approve. She came over to me after I finished speaking and she said: 'How dare you compare Timbuktu to Jerusalem. Do you know where Timbuktu is?' I said: 'Yes, it's in Africa, central Africa.' I said to her: 'What's your objection to Timbuktu ? People are living there too.' And she walked away from me in great disgust. Leibe Yoffe, who was also there, expressed his approval of my speech. The school approved of my talk. When I came back after the lecture I gave them a copy. It was put up on the wall. So it was displayed for everybody to read.

Later, the Zionist organisation organised a debate and asked me to support the Balfour Declaration. I asked them for material on the Declaration before I would speak. After reading, I came to the conclusion that the Balfour Declaration would not solve the Jewish problem, that the Jews are all over the world, and Israel, which was then Palestina, cannot absorb all the Jews and what would happen to the Palestinians? I said to my mother, 'I am not going to support the Balfour Declaration.' I explained why. She said: 'You better go tell them.' On Sunday I went to the Zionist organisation office and told them that I am not prepared to support the Balfour Declaration... And they said: 'You must speak.' And I said: 'If I must, I'll speak against it. You want me to speak against, because that's what I am prepared to do.' 'No no, you can't do it. You are advertised.' I said: 'Look, I cannot help, this is my point of view now.' There was great upset about it. After a lengthy discussion we compromised that I would attend the debate but not speak. I reported this to Leibe Yoffe. He attended the debate. That very evening after the debate I was recruited to an underground group to study Marx and Lenin's writings. But they didn't tell us it was Marx. We were each given two pages of a book, we were four in a group, so we were dished out eight pages. Everyone had to come to the next meeting and give an understanding of his two pages, and that was how we got the eight pages of understanding. I also studied photography and kept a diary.

When I was at school I wanted to do medicine. The Latvian University was opened in Varklian in the late 1920s. It was a Latvian language university. There was the Catholic Father at our school, and I told him that I wanted to study medicine. There was another girl, by the name of Mary Yawitch, and a boy, Sholem Fried, who also wanted to do medicine. The Father said we can't join the university to do medicine unless we have Latin. He said he's prepared to teach us Latin privately, during the vacation. So the three of us went to learn Latin at his place... The second day I noticed that he wore a cross. I said to him, 'We are objecting to curtsy to your cross [the curtsy was the standard form of greeting]. You know that we Jewish children don't curtsy to the cross.' So he said: 'What, do you expect me not to wear it?' And I said: 'Definitely...' Well, he eventually took it off or put it on underneath.

About two weeks later we picked up a conversation that Latvian students are preparing to attack Varklian, on Saturday, the Shabat, and that they'll attack Jewish children bathing in the river... So we decided to go and tell Leibe Yoffe, and members of the Jewish Defence League came to defend the Jewish children. Later the students decided that they would recruit peasant youths to attack Jews at a dance. We overheard this, and told the Jewish Defence League. They decided that Mary and I, the two girls, should go to the dance to identify those fellows for the Jewish Defence League members... The Jewish Defence League was very well prepared for them and gave them a good hiding. There was afterwards a court case about it, and Mary and I and Sholem Fried were called to give evidence (in camera, because we were too young and it would have been dangerous). So we told the court everything. Our parents decided that there was too much anti-Semitism at the Latvian University, which is why in September 1928, I went to Riga. Mother and Leibe Yoffe decided that I should attend the technical college ORT. On 1 September 1928 mother accompanied me to Riga. She provided me with rusks, cheese, eggs and jam. I breakfasted on a soft-boiled egg with rusks. Supper was cheese, rusks and hot water with jam. Tanya, my stepsister, expected me to have supper with her but I was frequently too busy. Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday I did have meals at her house. She was married with a son and daughter, and a governess for them. Getty was working in Tanya's butchery and lived with the family. Dora, my other sister, had a room not far from Tanya's house.

The teaching in ORT was in German. I went to ORT because it had a mission against Jewish people being luftmentshn. Have you heard that expression?

Q: Yes, thinking too much in the clouds...

Yes, but mainly concentrating on business, and not doing things with your hands. I chose to go to the technical college of ORT. We learned art, and dressmaking, and embroidery. ORT gave a stipendium of 15 roubles a month and I together with my cousin Rose Shochat obtained a big room to share, each paying 10 roubles a month, in Aspaseas Avenue opposite the Opera House. It was in walking distance to ORT, which was in the Morris Feitelberg Building. We were given a cup of hot cocoa with a buttered bun at 10 am, for lunch we were given tickets for a restaurant, and at 3 pm again milk and a bun.

Leibe Yoffe gave me the address of a college, which I joined. It was also in walking distance from my room. The hours were 5 pm to 8 pm. I studied pedagogy, history and geography. My school friend Leah Stekol attended the Yiddishe University in Riga, and during the summer vacation we studied Marxist books together, read and discussed novels by Emile Zola and Anatole France.

On the second day in Riga I was approached by a young woman to join an underground group, which had heard about me from the Varklian group. Years later Leah told me that she gave my name to them. In the underground group I was given political education and assigned to select scholars from ORT to give them Marxist orientation. With the five roubles left from my stipendium I bought newspapers, paid subs to the People's University, a small fee for college and MOPR - an organisation to help imprisoned revolutionaries and their families. The People's University was near to the college that I attended. After college hours I would go there. I was young, energetic and particularly thirsty for knowledge. There were very interesting lectures. I became friendly with a woman who worked in the Russian Trade Mission. She might have been Jewish but she spoke only Russian. I attended her lectures on historical and dialectical materialism. I was also given an assignment by her to give a lecture on the problems in Persia and the British government's desire to capture the oil companies in Persia. That involved research, which I enjoyed.

At a subsequent meeting at the People's University the committee decided that speakers should go to secondary schools, speak to them about 7 November (the day of the Russian Revolution), and appeal to scholars to attend a demonstration for unemployment insurance organised by the Workers and Peasant Faction in parliament. I went to the demonstration; the police came and were brutal, hitting the demonstrators, including me. After the demonstration there was a meeting to report back. Morris Kagan, from a secondary school in Riga, told me: 'In your school you were the only one absent, so you must prepare yourself to be dismissed from school tomorrow.' The next morning I went to school as usual, passed the principal, Maria von Maritza's, office, curtsied and greeted her: ' Gutten morgen ', she called me into the office and asked me where I was the previous day. I replied: 'Yesterday I was in a demonstration to celebrate the Russian Revolution.' She told me that Russian communism was no good that she was in her young days a social democrat, but that Russia is not good. I said: 'Well, I am young, I don't know what I will find out later, but at present I think it is a great historical event that the workers and peasants took power and removed the oppressors and exploiters of Tsarist Russia.' She asked me to accompany her to the classroom and told the class: 'Alexandra was honest and because she told me the truth, I forgive her what she did and I therefore ask that you take no action against her.' There was great applause and her speech strengthened my position of leadership in the ORT school.

Q: Were other members of your family involved in radical politics?

Yes, my stepsisters Anna and Tanya belonged to a revolutionary group with Leibe Yoffe in Riga in 1917. My sisters Mary and Dora were members of Arbeiter Heim [The Workers' Home, a communist-aligned grouping left of the Bund, which was banned by the Latvian government]. We had plenty of political debates at home. Some of my cousins left Varklian, went to Russia and were active members of the Bolsheviks. When in 1967 I visited the Soviet Union for its 50th anniversary, I was taken to Leningrad. There, in Smolny Institute, in a room displaying photos of men and women leaders, I recognised my cousin Rose's elder sister.

The first strike in which I was involved was in ORT. We scholars felt exploited because Maria von Maritza, the principal, was a well-known designer of suits, evening and day frocks. Wealthy women came to her and she designed clothes for them. We would cut and sew and actually make the clothes. I wrote an article in the youth paper about the conditions in ORT. We held meetings and worked out demands to have 20 roubles a month as a stipendium, free medical service and during the school holidays we should also be given the stipendium. A delegation selected by the scholars, with me as the spokesperson, met Maria von Maritza and Mr Shtikan, the ORT secretary, who was a law lecturer of the university. They refused to consider our demands and dismissed us. A week later we went on strike.

The following week a young communist member, Berkowitz, suggested that I should meet Lazar Bach, who knew Shtikan, thinking Bach may be helpful to bring about a settlement of the strike. Right away we arranged for an appointment with Bach, but he never turned up. The next week the strike was in full force and we decided to ask Shtikan to meet us. He agreed and we started negotiations. For a whole week we argued our case. Shtikan, Maria von Maritza, and the chairman of ORT, Mr Levin, finally agreed to organise free medical service, to increase the stipendium to 17 roubles and to pay it out for one month of the two-month summer vacation. We reported their offer to a meeting of scholars who accepted it and the strike was settled.

At a meeting of young activists in the forest in 1929, we were told that in view of the approaching capitalist crisis — unemployment and economic depression — we should emigrate to any capitalist country (because conditions would be ripe for a revolution) but not to the Soviet Union.

The following week my friend Leah and I attended a mass meeting. The police came in, arrested the speakers on the platform and started to arrest other people. Leah and I together with others left the hall, but unknown to me Leah was arrested. When her mother was given the news of her arrest, she told my mother who became anxious that I too would be arrested. My brother Isher had gone to South Africa in 1927. (It was he who changed our name from Alexandrowich to Alexander.) She contacted him in Cape Town to arrange papers for me to go to South Africa. Then she phoned me and asked me to come to Varklian, which was a four-hour train journey. I came to Varklian and mother told me her plan. I told her that I must go back to Riga to discuss it with my teachers and also with my boyfriend, Edgar. My real reason was to discuss it with my underground group. Mother told me that before I leave Varklian for Riga I must obtain a certificate of 'good behaviour' which had to accompany my application for a passport. We went to her cousin, Yankele Swartz, who was the mayor of Varklian. He gave a note to the chief of police to whom we went and got the paper, with which I got the passport to emigrate. I returned to Riga, had a meeting with my group, and they agreed that I could go to South Africa, it being a capitalist country.

They gave me journals in Russian of the Communist International paper, which had articles by Eddie Roux on the South African Communist Party, the ANC and the ICU. They also gave me training in underground work and addresses in Berlin where I could meet comrades from the International Red Aid. I discussed my decision with Edgar, and we agreed he would make an effort to come to South Africa too. He was at that time studying radio engineering. I spent the summer vacation doing underground work and returned to Varklian to say goodbye to family and friends.

On 1 October, mother, Minnie and I returned to Riga. Edgar, his family, my family and friends were at the station to bid me farewell. My sister Getty introduced me to Julius Berman, Isher's friend, who was to travel with me to South Africa.

We went via Lithuania and Poland to Berlin. We stayed in Berlin for two days, and I met comrades from the International Red Aid. In Hamburg we stayed in a hostel for ten days. There too I met comrades of the International Red Aid, who took me to trade union and Communist Party meetings. They told me that on Ubena, the boat on which I was to travel, there was a young communist group and they would contact me so that I could attend their meetings.

The very first day on the Ubena, a young comrade came to me, introduced himself and invited me to a meeting the next afternoon. I was not seasick, attended all meals and had meetings with the comrades who often served good food at the meetings. We stopped at Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Southampton, Las Palmas, and Walvis Bay.

Early on Wednesday 6 November, Ubena docked in Cape Town. Isher and Dora [Ray's sister] had sent us photos of Table Mountain, but to see this Majestic Mountain and White-painted houses was breathtaking. By 10 am we were united. We went to 74 Roeland Street, an upstairs flat which Isher and Dora had found for us. The flat consisted of a big room and bedroom for Isher and Julius. Behind the divider were Dora's and my beds. The flat was well furnished. On the landing was an improvised kitchen with a little blue flame [paraffin stove] and table. Further on, on the steps, was a wash-basin. On Thursday 7 November I asked Isher and Dora how we are celebrating the Russian Revolution. They told me that there would be a meeting on Sunday night. I was disappointed and cried, longing for Riga and political activities. Friday at midday I went to the docks to say goodbye to my German comrades. I told them how unhappy I was. They told me the ports they were going to and said they would be back in about three weeks' time. If I was still unhappy they would collect money for a return ticket to go back to Europe. They made me feel better.

Dora had given me money and told me what to buy at the top of Canterbury and Roeland Streets. She said there will be a vegetable and fruit cart there. I went, found the cart, and workers who were coming out the factories. I asked them: 'Have you a trade union?' The Ospovat Furniture Factory workers said yes. I asked: 'Are you members?' They said no. I got the same reply from the leather workers' factory. The third factory was a laundry, where Malay and Coloured women came out. They replied that they had no union. After doing my shopping I came home and came to the conclusion that this was virgin soil and that I should remain in South Africa and help organise the unorganised. After supper, Isher said to me that I looked happier. I told him of the assurance I had received from the Ubena comrades, and my experience at the top of Canterbury Street. I told them that I would look for a job the next week and settle down. '

Q: Were you initially mixing mainly with other Jewish immigrants?

No, I wasn't. But I met them through the family. My own family came out in April 1930, my mother and my two sisters... I didn't see myself as Jewish. One evening my family organised that I should go to have tea with some landslayt. You know that expression, meaning people who came from the same town. They had come from Latvia, but the younger people had little interest in socialist ideas. They came here because it was a place you could make money. And I had a very strong reaction to them. I said to my brother: 'Please don't take me again. I have nothing in common with them.' They were running down the Blacks. My first reaction was that their remarks were the same as anti-Semites'.

We rented a flat upstairs from Mrs Hoffenberg, a German Jewish woman who owned the house. On Saturday morning, Isher and Dora went to work. I did the washing. I heard crying in the yard. The domestic worker employed by Mrs Hoffenberg was crying. Mrs Hoffenberg called her domestic worker 'nigger'. I went down, spoke to Mrs Hoffenberg in German and told her that she should be ashamed for insulting her domestic worker who was born here. I told her domestic servant not to cry because she hadn't committed any crime by being Black. Mrs Hoffenberg told me to get out of the yard and late in the afternoon when Isher and Dora returned, she demanded that we should leave the flat... After a great deal of discussion without me, it was agreed that if I did washing, I must wait for Dora to hang it up and must not enter the yard or speak to her servant.

After that incident, comrades came to see me. They were all members of MOPR. They said that they were collecting money and sending it home to help their comrades and their families. I told them that it is wrong - we have to organise help for revolutionaries here. They argued with me that there are no revolutionaries here. I told them of the articles I'd read by Eddie Roux. We didn't resolve the discussion...

I was quick to warm to South Africa. I corresponded with Edgar, who was arrested in Riga at a demonstration on 7 November, the day after I arrived in South Africa. So I kept up correspondence, because political prisoners are very much in need of communication. He was a poet so he sent me a lot of poetry, and also articles he had written in the German, Russian or Latvian languages. Because the prison authorities had to be able to read the letters, I would write to him in Russian or German. I also corresponded with other comrades and sent articles to the Illustrated Workers' Journal in Berlin.

I didn't get involved with any boys here, because I made that agreement with Edgar before I left. We used to have the Soviet five-year plans, and so when I was leaving we made an agreement for five years. And then he was arrested for five years. My idea was that he should come to South Africa, but he didn't come. But that's a different story. Anyhow, it was a platonic love affair... My correspondence with him stabilised me, and I didn't look for any other friendships. My decision was to help the movement.

Q: How did you meet other comrades?

I received a message that on Sunday morning at 11 am, I am to meet a delegation of the Communist Party at the corner of De Waal Drive and Roeland Street. Sunday morning I met Joe Pick, the chairman of the Cape Town Communist Party, Johnny Gomas and Abdurahmat Brown. They suggested that I should become secretary of the Cape Town Party branch. I laughed at them and said: 'You don't know my age - I am not sixteen yet and the Party secretary should be one of the people and not a foreigner.' I went to the Sunday night meeting and I enjoyed very much the speeches by Johnny Gomas, Joe Pick and James Shuba. James Shuba was the secretary of the Cape Town Stevedore Workers' Union, the only remaining union of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union of South Africa (ICU). John Gomas, James La Guma and E J Khaile had all been expelled from the ICU by six votes to five because they were communists. [All three communists stood for militant and accountable leadership.] At that time [1929] there was a strike in America by textile workers, and Shuba spoke about that strike and called for working-class solidarity to collect money. And they asked me to go around, which I did. The collection was bigger than usual and people thought that was because I was so blonde and so new, that people gave more money. At the meeting I also helped to sell The South African Worker — the organ of the Communist Party.

I was invited to the district Party committee meeting on Monday night at Mr and Mrs Shlom's house at 44 Bloem Street. I went to the meeting and was signed up as a Party member. Comrade Shuba appealed to comrades to help him in his office. I agreed to help on Saturday afternoons. On Tuesday Isher took me to a meeting in a hall near the Great Synagogue, where a guest was speaking on Birobidzhan. Ruth Alexander, wife of Morris Alexander MP, was in the chair. After the meeting I introduced myself to her and asked her what organisations there are for women. She told me there was the Women's Enfranchisement League, which is planning next year to organize a campaign for votes for all women. I said: 'Don't you women have the vote?' She said 'No.' I was shocked because in Latvia, which had inherited the Soviet constitution, women had the vote. I told her I would like to read books, from which I can learn about women and conditions in South Africa. She told me to read Women and Labour by Olive Schreiner. I subsequently went to the Cape Town library and read the book.

Isher introduced me to other Jewish men, like Baskin and Fox, who were supporters of the Soviet Union. That week I obtained a job at Bragin, a dress shop in Adderley Street. I was paid one pound a week. At the next Party meeting, Eddie Roux came from Cambridge and announced that the ANC was organising a demonstration against passes on 16 December and asked comrades to attend. On Tuesday (the day of the demonstration) I asked for leave for a few hours, which I would work off over the next few days. I joined Eddie Roux in the demonstration. We were the only two Whites there. I returned to work after the demonstration and worked in Wednesday and Thursday lunchtime. On Friday, when I was paid my wage, I was told that I cannot work there any more because of my attending the demonstration. I argued with them against it, but I was paid off.

On Saturday afternoon I helped Comrade Shuba, on Sunday morning I went selling The South African Worker with Johnny Gomas and discussed general Party work. He took me to James La Guma's house in Rutger Street in Cape Town and I was happily surprised to see a big photo of Lenin addressing a rally.

In January 1930, when Clements Kadalie came to Cape Town with Ballinger they had a meeting in District Six and Johnny Gomas took me there and introduced me. Now I had read the article by Eddie Roux about the ICU, and it was a great event for me to meet the organiser, the general secretary of the ICU.

Q: Did you meet any Jewish intellectuals here?

I met David Jagger, a Jewish poet, who was a friend of Cissie Gool. We discussed the position of Jewish people who come here and cannot read or write English. He invited me to an evening at his place, where I met Julius Lewin and Hillel Schrire, both of whom studied at UCT. They agreed to speak to Rose van Geldern and Hilda Purvitsky, who were principal and vice-principal at Good Hope primary and secondary schools. This resulted in night classes for young Jewish people being organised. I obtained a job at True Bros in Long Street, with a higher wage than at Bragin's at 6 pounds per month. I kept up meetings with Julius Lewin and Eleanor Hawarden, also at UCT. Julius was a member of the Fabian Society.

Q: What socialist organisations were there?

They started the Jewish Workers Club in Johannesburg. We started the Workers Club, which became the People's Club... it was an important venture in Cape Town. It organised various lectures by Bill Andrews, Advocate Harry Snitcher, Sam Kahn. Jack Simons and I also gave lectures... There were other people at the University of Cape Town who joined the Party, like Professor Sandon and Professor Baldey. There was an intelligentsia developing and we had really good study classes. Oscar Mpetha is a product of that era, you see. Now, I got support from Johnny Gomas and others about forming the Ikaka Laba Sebenzi - Workers Shield- at the first Party conference that took place in December 1930. They actually established it in January 1931, to help political prisoners here and to fight against all forms of racial oppression and racial chauvinism. It affiliated with the International Red Aid in Berlin.

So these people who were at first sending money to their Eastern European homelands became contributors to the Ikaka Laba Sebenzi. And we also established contact with American socialists, with the International Labour Defence Organisation. In 1931, my sister Dora, Molly Wolton and others established Friends of the Soviet Union. And we got papers, Russia Today and Russia in Construction from England. So you see, we internationalised it all. And of course there was the Communist Party paper, The South African Worker, which we sold in the townships here. We were extremely busy. Things were happening. Remember, it's the year of the Depression, the hungry years of capitalist oppression. There were demonstrations for work and unemployment insurance by Black and White people. Soon - in 1931/32- you have huge demonstrations in Johannesburg. With Black and White people marching. Black and White people, like Issy Diamond, being arrested. So the need to help political prisoners became very important.

We established our Party office at 22 Hanover Street where Johnny Gornas and Eddie Roux conducted study classes. They taught us to sing Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika.

In December 1932, Douglas Wolton and I were arrested for inciting the tram and bus workers to strike for a rise from one shilling and sixpence to two shillings per hour. The strike brought Cape Town 's public transport to a standstill for ten days and was broken by police and union officials. The strike and the trial encouraged the growth of militant trade unions in Cape Town. The Party decided that Julius Lewin should defend us legally while Wolton would do political defence. During his defence of me, Julius Lewin declared that I was very young and obviously misled by the older men, like Wolton. I strongly objected to his remark and demanded that he should withdraw it or not defend me any more. He corrected his statement. Douglas was sentenced to three months' hard labour and I to one month suspended for two years. The order they gave me was like a banning order.

Tell me about the ' Native Republic ' slogan which almost split the Communist Party in two.

I had a meeting with great ANC leaders, Elliot Tonjeni and Bransby Ndobe - Elliot Tonjeni came from the Eastern Province, Ndobe was a Basotho man. These two men were interested in the Communist Party slogan for an ' African Native Republic '. The slogan was debated soon after I came to South Africa. Back in January 1929, the Communist Party 7th annual conference adopted a policy for 'the complete equality of all races, the removal of all discriminatory laws and practices, and calling on workers and peasants of all races to combine in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalist and imperialist rule'.

To see African men and women not having the right to vote was to me atrocious. I was in wholehearted support for the idea of a Black Republic, a democratic Black Republic. It would be Black because the majority of the people are Black. The Independent Native Republic slogan inspired in Africans a determination to reject White domination. It was a ray of hope for freedom and equality with other peoples.

But there was opposition to that within the Party, and some people were expelled because of their opposition...

Yes. Some White members thought it was a tactical mistake, that it would alienate White workers who were regarded as the most militant and the most likely to lead a revolution. So there was opposition and a number of well-known trade union leaders like C B Tyler (a leader of the Building Workers Union), Percy Bunting ( Brian Bunting 's father) and Solly Sachs were expelled from the party. There were also other reasons for the expulsions, which were instigated by Lazar Bach and Douglas Wolton. I was against the expulsions, but I was a small fish in comparison to the people who took the decisions. I was only here a year or two years when the expulsions took place. Bill Andrews, for whom I had great respect, was also expelled. I met him in 1930, when he was on holiday in Muizenberg, and he came into this Party meeting. I looked upon him as a social democrat. He looked suntanned from Muizenberg beach. He was in a nice White linen suit, and I always had a feeling that this is how the social democrats dress. This is not the way a communist lives, not in that style. But when the South African Trades and Labour Council was formed, and I heard him speak, I developed a great deal of sympathy with him. He introduced me to other trade union leaders. I came there as a delegate [and] I was the only White girl from the group of Whites.

What happened when people found out that Bill Andrews had been expelled? Did more people then leave the Party?

They were disappointed. It wasn't an easy period. But we made up for the losses in membership by getting more Coloureds and Africans in the Party.

So initially there were a lot of Whites in the Party, and in the 1930s most of those Whites were Jews...

No, this was not so. There were Jews and non-Jews. Because, after all, in Johannesburg you had English and American immigrants, and German immigrants, and immigrants from other parts of Europe, it wasn't just Jews. Eddie Roux's father came from Germany. There were some Jewish comrades, but they didn't make the same impact on me as Brown and Gomas and James La Guma.

I knew Moses Kotane from the very day he left to study at the Moscow Lenin School in 1931. We had a strike at the African Clothing Factory. I was busy with the strike, and Johnny Gomas came to me and said, 'Look we've got a job to do. An African comrade from Johannesburg - Kotane wasn't yet general secretary - is coming to Cape Town to catch a boat to go to Moscow.' I was very excited about it. I recruited a [Latvian] comrade here, by the name of Reisman and he organised passports. He was an engraver. You take off the stamp and you put in another stamp. Moses Kotane, who was young, said to me, 'Nobody must see that you are seeing me off. I'll get on to the boat at twelve, and I'll lock myself in the cabin. You will look up the cabin number and make three knocks on the door. Then I will know that it is you and I will open the door, but I will pretend not to recognise you.'

I did this and then I sent off a telegram to Douglas Wolton, who was the general secretary of the Party in Johannesburg, to tell him a parcel of dried fruit had been dispatched.

I also met J B Marks later when he came to Cape Town to help us organise the unemployed. I worked with him in what is now Parow, Goodwood and Athlone. It was all sand dunes and in winter months it was muddy. On those sand dunes Coloured people lived in shacks and we went around to them. I'll never forget how JB was surprised the way I was walking, because I was keeping up with him. That was in 1933.

Q: Was the co-operation between the ANC and SACP consistent...?

For that I will ask you to read Class and Colour. There were times of differences. But we believed in a Black Republic. Look, the Communist Party was the first non-racialist party, where people of all races could join. The Communist Party was the first political party that demanded the vote for Blacks. So therefore the ANC had reason to work with us.

In 1985 this was formalised...

No, it was not formalised. There is no formality about it. Joe Slovo got on to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC as a White member of the ANC, not as secretary-general of the SACP. And Maharaj came in, not as some representative of the Indian Congress, but as an Indian member of the ANC. That's how you have to look at it.

The thinking behind a united South Africa is in the Freedom Charter of 1955. And if you look at our book Class and Colour, you will see how the Communist Party has constantly put forward the idea of one nation, one South African nation. Which is now what the ANC is doing, nation-building.

Q: And did you have to fight to maintain the position on non-racialism?

No. We didn't have to fight. In South Africa we were always working with Black people. As far back as 1927, Josiah Gumede, president of the ANC, told the congress against colonial oppression and imperialism: 'I am happy to say that there are communists in South Africa. I am myself not one. But it is my experience that the Communist Party is the only party that stands behind us, and from which we can expect something.' Luthuli, in 1961, who wasn't a member of the Communist Party, who was an ANC member, put forward the idea of a common society. And he was working very closely with Moses Kotane.

In 1970 there was a conference organised by African women of the African Women's Congress on the African Continent. There were women from Algeria, Egypt etc. who were actually whiter than me, but they objected to me being there because I was White. I told them that there were many White comrades suffering in prison eg Denis Goldberg, Bram Fischer and others. I called Comrade Ruth Mompati and told her what they were saying. She and the other ANC women comrades told them that I am one of them and I remained to participate fully in the conference.

It seems it took a long time for a White person to get a senior position in the ANC on its National Executive Committee.

Yes, that's right. It was only in June 1985 that the ANC conference decided to open membership of the National Executive Committee to all races. Comrade Joe Slovo, Mac Maharaj and others got on to the committee by virtue of their dedication to the struggle for a free democratic, anti-racist and anti-sexist South Africa. Because there were people influenced by the PAC, you know, do-it-alone business.

1933 was a significant year because the Nazis came to power. Could you talk a little about your memories of this period, and how the growth of fascism in Europe affected you here?

The Nazis coming to power was very tormenting to us. We had no illusions about the Nazis' hatred towards the Jews and Black people. I stayed up the whole night listening to the reports on the BBC about how the Nazis were winning. We knew that German Nazis will attack the Jews, which they did right away. The victory of the Nazis created many refugees, German Jews as well as socialists. One day I came home and three men were waiting for me. They were given my address by comrades in Hamburg or Berlin, and they told me they had managed to run away from Nazism. They told me they needed accommodation and they needed help to find jobs. Among them was one Jewish fellow, Hans Friedrich. I introduced him to Dr A H Gool's family. I helped the other two with accommodation and jobs.

In South Africa the fascists formed two kinds of organisation, the Greyshirts and the Blackshirts. The Blackshirts were an offshoot of Blackshirts in England, they didn't last long. But the Greyshirts were the real offshoot of the Nazis, the grey uniforms, and they were doing the same things the AWB does. The main thing was to break up communist meetings, workers' meetings, anywhere. And one day they organised a meeting in Paarl. And the Tram and Bus workers broke up their meeting. That was important because we got workers to fight the Greyshirts. And when Cissie Gool organised a meeting of the National Liberation League in Claremont Town Hall, the [Greyshirts] turned up to break up Cissie Gool's meeting and shout kaffir and other insulting words. But we defeated them and hit them back and they had to run out. And so this was also in Johannesburg, where there were confrontations between the communists and the Anti-Fascist League and the Greyshirts.

We formed a strong Anti-Fascist League here. Comrade Bill Andrews had already organised a boycott of German goods in 1934. When the Bremen, a Nazi warship, came to South Africa in '35, the Communist Party [produced] a leaflet to explain to the German sailors.

In Europe there was developing a movement against fascism and Nazism. In France Leo Blum was elected leader of the People's Front and in Spain the poverty-stricken peasants also formed a popular front government. We organised a campaign to help the Spanish Republic.

Whilst I was going around collecting money and distributing leaflets about the Spanish Republic, I knocked at the door of Bishop Lavis on a Saturday afternoon. He gave me a donation of ten shillings, which was a lot of money, and we became great friends. I also got the support of Dr Petronella van Heerden. I met her one-day while she was fixing her car. For the first time I saw a White woman on the ground, you know, and I leant down and said, 'Can I help you?', not that I know anything about cars, but I wanted to establish contact. And we became friends. I first involved her when I was secretary of the relief fund for poverty-stricken Namaqualand people. It wasn't only Coloured people and Namaquas who were suffering, but Afrikaners, the trekboers, were also starving.

Petronella mobilised the National Party women and that is how the South African government under Hertzog voted £10 000 to help the children of the Republic of Spain. Although she was a Nationalist member, she was a Republican in her ideas. Uys Krige, who had come back from Spain where he saw the International Brigade in action, also attended the meeting [to which] Petronella van Heerden invited me, with all the Nationalists. I was very impressed by him.

Petronella also organised a [fund-raising] function in 1936 or '37 at the Cathedral Hall, which South African musicians attended. And that day Paul Robeson's wife came here on a trip to see a little bit of Cape Town, but mainly to go to Bloemfontein and Transkei. I took her to the Cathedral Hall that night. She thought it was wonderful that we should get so many Black and White people together to help Spain. She said to me, 'That's going to be an inspiration when I write to Paul.' And in America they had the same types of organisation. So, the movement was growing.

In 1936 a few of us got together to establish a workers' paper that should [oppose] Nazism, pass laws, war, and support the Spanish Republic and the people's forces. The Guardian actually started in February 1937. Although I was on the founding committee, it was decided that I should not be obvious, because I was a known communist. They didn't want it to be targeted as a communist paper. So Jimmy Emmerich, who was a Party member, came on to The Guardian management board along with other comrades who were not known as communists...

Q: What was your reaction to the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact?

I was very disappointed. At the time I was secretary of the Party and the Party decided to organise a meeting to explain the pact. I was against it. I said it's going to lead to confusion because all the time we were denouncing the Nazis and now the Soviet Union made a pact with them. I asked the comrades not to expect me to speak. Harry Snitcher pressed that I should speak, but Moses Kotane and Bill Andrews said they must respect my integrity. I printed the leaflet drafted by the comrades and dished it out to our Party groups for distribution. I wasn't the only one who objected to the pact - there were many others.

Q: How did the Jewish community respond to what you were doing to fight fascism?

The boycott of German goods was supported by many Jewish people, including businessmen who agreed to stop trading with Germany. In 1933 I became secretary of the Commercial Employees Union. They sent me to attend a conference of trade unionists and liberals in Johannesburg. This conference, held in December 1935, established the Anti-Fascist League. The idea of a united front against fascism had taken root.

But on my return from Johannesburg I was dismissed from my employment. The excuse was that when I was secretary [of the union] I said 'the last come the first to go'. And they dismissed three people who had been employed after me, so that I could be fitted in. The manager said: 'Our clients are not only Jews, and with your speech at the conference being reported in the Cape Times, it is not good for you to be working for us.' I strongly criticised him that a Jewish firm should act like this.

Now when I started to help organise the workers, I went to the clothing factory of Mauberger, a Jewish person. They had a factory in Keerom Street and I was working at True Bros in Long Street. And I would go at lunch to this factory, and I got into the cloakroom to sit and talk to the workers. Some White girls were working there too, that is how I could get in. They had their sandwiches, I had my sandwiches. I used to take The South African Worker with me to sell. One day, a foreman realised that I was a stranger there. He came and just picked me up and took me out. But I didn't have any particular resentment because the company happened to be Jewish. This is the standard behaviour of all capitalists, of employers of labour. They don't want their workers to be organised.

It was different, however, later on, when we had the anti-Semitism in Germany, during the Holocaust. Then I, for example, reacted strongly against Jacobs of Crosse & Blackwell when he said voetsak and kicked me out of the office. I thought, this fellow is behaving in the same way as the Nazis are behaving to Jews. But even then, I didn't know that he was a Jewish employer. Afterwards I learned that he was Jewish.

In 1944 the Food and Canning Workers Union had a meeting with the dried fruit companies in Worcester, chaired by the Mayor of Worcester. The spokesman for the dried fruit companies was George Brink, who had a factory in Montagu in partnership with Eric Louw, the vicious anti-Semite. George Brink said that he refuses to sit at a meeting with kaffirs, hotnots and jode. I immediately demanded that he withdraw his remarks. He would not, so I appealed to the chairman, saying we cannot sit with a man like him. George Brink left the meeting and we continued without him. In May 1945 we had a strike of the dried fruit workers. Employers refused to settle the strike. There was a stalemate and the bosses wanted to break our union so that it would never strike again. Our union decided that we should send a deputation to Wolf and Simon Heller, two brothers who owned Standard Canners in Worcester, and ask them whether they are prepared to allow Brink, this anti-Semite, to speak for them. We told them what had happened in October 1944. It worked. They agreed to make an agreement with us. And then there was another factory in Paarden Eiland whose owner also happened to be Jewish. We went to him and he also signed the same agreement. But I didn't have any illusions about Jewish employers. Jewish employers behaved like all other employers, the same way in America, and in England, and everywhere else.

Q: What was it like being Jewish in the Party at different periods?

I had no problems. When the State of Israel was established we supported it. In fact, the Soviet Union had moved for the acceptance of Israel in the United Nations. In 1948, when the Nationalists came to power, our party exposed the anti-Semitism and racialism of the National Party.

Q: But then later when the ANC began to support the PLO?

Well, ja. You're talking now of the eighties, you see. That's a different story. I had experiences at conferences, meeting PLO women who were very anti-Semitic. I remember going to a conference of trade unions and there were PLO members from Arab countries also in the food industry. And one fellow got up when I came to the table and moved away. And I demanded to know why. And then I was told by somebody 'Because he doesn't like to sit with Jews'. So I said 'Well, that's something we have to discuss. I'm not here representing Jews (I was representing the ANC or SACTU — South African Congress of Trade Unions) and I don't accept such treatment.' So they had a discussion with him, and that was the only time he moved away.

Q: And in the movement did you ever encounter problems?

No, I didn't. I was always fully accepted. In fact, at a 1980 conference for women's rights in Copenhagen, organised by the United Nations, there were PLO women and there were also women from Israel, and we wanted the PLO women to meet the women from Israel. And the PLO women didn't want to meet them. Ruth Lubitz, who is a leading member of the Women's Communist Movement in Israel, said to me, 'Ray, I envy you that you are so close to the African delegation. They accept you as one of them and we can't get anywhere.' And I then went to the Soviet comrades to discuss this problem and they were trying to bring about a meeting between the Israeli women and the PLO. But I didn't have that problem.

Q: Did workers know you were Jewish?

Oh yes. I didn't make an issue of it. But they knew that my English is not exactly the English of South Africans and that I was born elsewhere. And they also knew that there was an attempt to remove me from South Africa.

Do you think the fact that you were born Jewish helped you as a woman? Perhaps Jewish women have more possibilities for being assertive?

I didn't think of myself as Jewish. Because I just felt that I belong to the world. I'm internationalist, which is true. I remember reacting very strongly to the Jewish prayer [which Orthodox Jewish men say] in the morning, Thank you God, for making me a man and not a woman'. I don't know whether I was five years old or six... but I refused to accept this prayer. My grandfather, who was a very Orthodox Jew, demanded that if I don't accept some prayer or other, I must leave the table. Of course my mother didn't like the idea that I should be sent from the table, so she brought me food in my room. I had to leave the table but I made my point, you see. And my father was in agreement with me... No, I don't think the fact that I was a Jewish woman helped me. What did help me, when I went out to organise Langeberg Kooperasie Beperk (LKB) in Ashton, was the fact that I was a woman. They threatened to shoot me for organising the workers; I was told subsequently by some people that if I had been a man they would have shot me or beat me. But because I was a woman among Afrikaners they respected women and I wasn't ill-treated as I could have been if I had been a man. So that's the only thing I can think of.

When you were bringing up your children, did you want to give them anything in terms of Jewish culture?

Well, when my children were old enough so I could read to them, I would read to them the books of the Holocaust. I got these books from the library, which showed the struggles that the Jewish people had in Poland, and I read the children this.

Q: And in terms of religion?

They knew my mother. My mother used to make a point of taking them to the synagogue on all the Jewish holidays. So we had no problems about it.

You were in exile for twenty-five years...

They introduced the Suppression of Communism Act in 1950.I was banned time and time again. The first banning order was two years, but they kept on renewing it. I was banned in 1953 from trade union and civic organisations. I remained active, working underground. In 1954 I stood for parliament and was elected as a Native Representative, but was not allowed to take my seat. The day I was elected, I was banned from parliament, and they pushed me off the steps of parliament. So I sued the policeman for assault, and they settled out of court. I used the money I got to pay off all my printing bills for my election campaign.

My husband Jack was detained in April 1960 and banned from teaching at the university in 1964. In May 1965 we decided to go into exile in Zambia, the nearest African state. Jack was given a fellowship at Manchester University. We went to Manchester and I studied at the university - Industrial Labour Relations and German and Russian.

We wrote Class and Colour 1850-1950, which was published by Penguin. In December 1967 we returned to Zambia. Jack was lecturing at the Zambian university and I worked for the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as administrative and finance secretary.

Those years in exile away from our children, friends and comrades were very anxious years. We brought Johan [their son] to Manchester in December 1965 to avoid his being called up to the South African army... In January 1968, the ANC accepted Jack and me as members. We were the first Whites to be accepted.

After leaving the ILO in February on account of my health, I worked for the ANC Women's Section and the South African Congress of Trade Unions, addressing meetings and conferences in Europe and Africa to mobilise support for our liberation struggle. I attended the ILO conferences from 1970-76 and again in 1983 with Comrade Frene Ginwala and Mac Maharaj and Josiah Jele.

I went to neighbouring African states, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, with other comrades to meet comrades from inside to brief and debrief them. The Nationalist government increased their arrests, torture and oppression, murdering our people at home.

Q: What were your memories of Joe Slovo and Ruth First ?

Well, I worked with Joe very closely over the years in exile. In Lusaka, in Maputo, wherever he went.

Jack and I were very fond of Ruth. She was a remarkable person. When our daughters Mary and Tanya were banned in 1976, Ruth was the first to send us a card of support. You felt she was with you. A few months before she was murdered we discussed, in Maputo, the problems our children had.

You've seen A World Apart... we discussed the problems we had with our children because we were working underground and couldn't tell them what we were doing, where we were going, because it was dangerous. When Johan was four years old, police raided our house, and they questioned him: 'What is your mother doing?' I was banned at the time, and although I went to underground meetings, I still had many evenings at home. So I made him a lumber jacket with a zip and little pants to match. And he was pulling the zip up and down and saying: 'My mother is a wonderful cook, she bakes lovely cakes, and look what she made me.' He was so proud of it. I don't think other children had lumber jackets, you see. And then he ran to his bedroom and took out his pyjamas, which I'd also made. So he gave me a wonderful certificate. And then they asked him, what do you want to be when you're big? He said he wants to be a farmer. So they said to one another, 'All the Commies' children want to be advocates and doctors, and he wants to be a farmer.'

He was really interested in farming. As a child he used to tell us, he'll be a farmer and he'll have an onion place, and Daddy and me, he'll give us a house, and we'll clean the onions. And he was so interested in farming that I gave him a little piece of land at our house in Oranjezicht, and he planted carrots and tomatoes and green peppers. And he took the money for the seeds from his pocket money. When I needed carrots he would sell the carrots to me. He learned agro-business [laughter].

Q: What does he do now?

Well, he's a botanist. He's lecturing at UWC.

Q: How was it to return home?

Jack and I were the first ones to return from exile on the 2nd of March 1990. It was a wonderful experience for us. We were met by many comrades at the Johannesburg and Cape Town airports and decided to continue our struggle together with the rest of the comrades for a free and democratic South Africa for which we had devoted our lives.

In 1986 the Food and Canning Workers Union that I established in 1941 united with other food unions to form the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) and they elected me as their life president. In 1991 I did not accept nomination to the central committee of the Communist Party, nor to the ANC Women's League. I did not accept nomination for ANC Member of Parliament in 1994 as I resolved that young comrades should move into positions of leadership. On the 2nd of December 1995 I was presented with Cosatu's Tenth Anniversary Award in recognition of decades of service to the trade union movement. On the 22nd of July 1995 my husband Professor Jack Simons died in our home after fifty-four and a half years of great companionship and joint dedication to the struggle for freedom in our country.

I always emphasised that I couldn't have done the work I did if not for Jack being the emancipated comrade he was. If I was in the kitchen and people came to consult with me about union activity he would take over...