PART 3
Jail
When I got to court they said, 'Eh, you will be very surprised to see
who is going to give evidence against you.' So I said, 'Well, I don't
care who it might be. I left my sons at home; it may be one of my sons
. . .
Well now, this person who was giving evidence against me, it was somebody
that I worked with. As I have said, at this time we were working with
the M-Plan and we had cells in the ANC. This man who was giving evidence
against me was the chairman of our group, and so he knew everything that
we had done and what we had said. When they told me that this person
was giving evidence against me and I saw this man there at the court,
I thought, 'Oh, is that you?' and I thought, 'Well, I am not going to
say anything, because he knows everything, and they know everything.
This man has told them everything. I am not going to make a fool of myself
and say what-what, they can just do what they like.' And so they asked
him, 'Yes, so-and-so, you worked with Frances Baard?'
'Yes.
'And what did you do?'
He told them what we did, everything as we did it. Then it came to my
side and I had to answer this man.
'Well, I don't know what to say. You can just do what you like, because
even if I say I didn't do that, or I did that ... I am going to be convicted,
ja So I give you the right, magistrate, to do just as you like.'
So the magistrate said, 'Well, since you've stayed a whole year in solitary
I am only going to give you five years to be in jail.'
So I was convicted for five years, and I went to jail for five years.
I started at Kroonstad, and I stayed there for about two years. That's
where I met those people who had been in the first case and had been
sent to jail before me.
Jail is not a nice place. The worst place, jail. When you are there
after you have been convicted they give you some khaki things to wear,
a khaki shirt and a khaki skirt, and they give you a mat and blankets
for sleeping on.
There's a bell, which rings in the mornings, very early, and they come
and open the doors, and there is noise, and you get up and go and wash.
They have bathrooms where you can wash. Then you make your beds. After
the washing it is breakfast time. We eat outside. Porridge and bread
and coffee. A mug of coffee and one slice of bread, perhaps two slices
after you have had your porridge.
Then after breakfast you start working. You clean your cells, and if
it is washing day you take all the things, which they have given you,
the clothes of the prisoners, and you have to do the washing. And if
there is something to be ironed, then some others will do the ironing.
Sometimes when we were at Kroonstad we used to sew with machines, sew
things, which were torn, and mend things.
Then it was lunch. It was mealies. Mealies only. When you are going
to have lunch they lock the cells. You have to have lunch inside the
cells. And then you can rest a bit until they come and-tell you that
time is up now and you must go back and work.
In the evening it was sweet potatoes. (At Barberton they used to have
big sweet potatoes!) They would cook the sweet potatoes and maybe some
spinach for us. And then after supper, maybe at four o'clock in the afternoon,
we are locked up again. And we stay there in the cell until it is time
to sleep for the night.
We were all political prisoners together in those cells and we used
to have schools there together. We used to teach the others who didn't
know how to read and write, and we used to have choirs and singing. We
didn't have any books there except some bibles, and they didn't give
us anything to write with. But as a prisoner you must have something
to write with. You don't care how you got it, and how you are going to
get it, but you must have something. So we used to have some writing
materials there too. And after we had given lessons we used to examine
these people, like a proper school.
After the schools and the teaching in the evening when we go to sleep,
we used to unroll these mats that they gave us to sleep on and we used
to sleep 1,2,3,4,5,6 . . . on this side of the cell and 1,2,3,4,5,6 .
. . on the other side, like that.
Anyway, I spent some time in Kroonstad jail and then they took us all
to Nylstroom where they have a big jail. We had no visitors in Nylstroom
jail because it was too far for our families to come and visit us, and
a lot of people didn't know which jail we were in. We used to write to
our families to tell them how we were and ask them how they were keeping,
but many of the letters didn't reach them. So it was very lonely there
in the jail. It was as if everyone had forgotten all about us. After
a time I smuggled a letter out to tell the people where we were and that
we were very lonely and unhappy in that jail, and what could they do
about it. Nothing happened for a long time and I forgot about the letter.
Then about six months later it finally ended up with a priest and he
showed it to Helen Joseph asking her if she knew anything about it. She
said, 'Yes, that is Frances Baard who has written that letter'. .
So she knew which jail we were in, and she told other people, and she
told them that things were not good with us. So-' those people arranged
for a group of women to come and visit us.
I will never forget that day. It was’ a very special day. The guards
came and told us that there were visitors to see us. We ' didn't know
who these women were but they told the prison people that they were our
relatives and so they were allowed to see us. We didn't know who they
were but we knew that they were from the ANC so each woman said, 'Ja,
ja, it is my relative.'
Each woman brought something with her and there was one woman to visit
each woman in jail so that each one of us had a visitor. We were so happy
to see these people man! I just danced when they came! We had something
to talk about for the whole day, for the whole month after that. But
the second time they tried to see us they were not allowed. I don't know
whether they had moved us to another jail already, or whether they stopped
those women, but they never came to see us a second time even though
I believe they tried.
While we were in Nylstroom some of those other women finished their
sentences and they went out of the jail. Then they took the rest of us
to Barberton. There is a very big jail there, and big people! I've never
seen such big people as the guards there, big and healthy, and they said,
'Ne, I must tell you that this is Barberton. Ons het klaar gehoor
van julle hier.' [We have-already heard about you here.] So that was the
last place, and we stayed there.
Mrs. Matomela who was my best friend in Port Elizabeth, she was there
too from the first lot of people who were tried. One day they came and
they gave her a telegram to tell her that her husband had passed away
while she was in jail. She asked them if she couldn't go home, to bury
her husband. They said, 'No, you can't. There are some people there that
will bury him.'
This poor woman was so upset you know. It was pathetic. You see her sitting
in that corner and you go to her, and she'll get up and leave you and
go to that other corner. It was too cruel for anyone to tell you that
you can't bury your own, own husband, and you are not even a criminal;
you are just there because you oppose the government. And so that was
that. She went out 'after her time had expired and she went home. And
when she was home she got sick and she passed away after only a few months,
I too didn't know what was happening with my family that time I was in
jail. I used to write to them but they never got my letters, and they
couldn't visit me because I was so far away in Barberton. I didn't know
whether they were well or sick, or where they were. It is very hard to
be a mother without knowing how your children are or anything. My younger
son got married while I was in jail but I didn't know until after I was
out.
At least it was better in jail than it had been in solitary confinement.
In jail there were other people to talk to, and things. Were better.
They used to allow us to go to church on Sundays then too. There was
a preacher or a minister who used to come and deliver some sermons to
us on Sunday mornings. After the sermon we would sing some hymns, and
then we would go back to our cells.
At that place they used to call us to the office and say the sergeant
or what, big what baas wants to see us. So we get there and there are
some questions we have to answer, and then we can go back to our cells.
So one day when we got there the women were called into the office one
by one. I waited there, and when one of them came back I asked her, 'What
is it now?'
'They asked us are we still members of the African National congress?'
'Oh. What did you say?'
'No. We said no, we are no more members.'
I said, 'Wait until they come and ask me!'
When they came and it was my turn, I went in and this man asked me,
'Are you still a member of the African National Congress?'
'Yes.'
'But the organization is banned.'
'But my spirit is not banned. I still say that I want freedom in my
lifetime. I don't care if the African National Congress is banned or
what-what, my spirit is not banned.'
'Loop! Gaan hier uit!' [Go! Get out of here!] And I was chased out
of there!
You know, when I was in jail one time a man came in there with his big
belly, a policeman or something. He opens the door. 'Hey! You communist
what-what!'
I said, 'what? I know nothing about communist. What is a communist?'
'You are a communist.'
'Hawu! I have never seen a communist in my life. What is it, a person,
or a snake or what?'
He called me a communist bitch, and it made me so cross that I had to
say some other things to him!
I remember some of the other women from the Eastern Cape who was there
in jail with me, Florence Matomela, Viola Bisset, Mangathia, Thalitha
Tshaba and Bendu, she was a nurse. There were six or seven of us in one
cell. There were also about four coloured girls from Cape Town. They
were arrested in Cape Town. And then there were some other African women
on this side. After a while those African women left and I was left alone
with the coloured girls. Those coloured girls, they got a long sentence
so they stayed after me. There were also some old women there who got
the same thing as me. Some person they worked with went and told the
magistrate, telling him lies how these old women used to go about with
little axes saying they are going to kill every white person. Hawu! How
can old women do such a thing? It was pure lies, and these poor women,
they had to go to jail and stay there for eight years for absolutely
nothing. I left those poor women there when I finished my five years;
I left them there to finish their eight years.
