(Author: Kathy Munro, Vol. 73, No. 1, Pesach 2018)
7 November 2017 marked the centenary of the Russian Revolution, and also of the birth of one of South Africa’s greatest 20th Century daughters, Helen Suzman. On Friday, 3 November, a small group gathered to remember and pay tribute to Suzman, with the unveiling of a blue plaque on the pavement at 13 Eton Road Parktown. This was an initiative of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation. The plaque was unveiled by Helen’s daughters, Frances and Patricia.
Heritage doyenne Flo Bird spoke with warmth and affection of Helen Suzman, her humanity and contribution to the fight for a democratic South Africa. We of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation are proud of her achievements. She was for 13 years the sole Progressive Party MP for Houghton in the white Parliament, a doughty, sharp tongued, brave anti-apartheid activist and fighter. She stood for liberalism and justice for all when in a minority of one. When Helen died in 2009, the speeches at the memorial event in Wits’ Great Hall were fulsome in their recognition of her moral authority and contribution to our history. The Helen Suzman Foundation in Johannesburg continues to work in her name.
The circular striking blue plaque to remember Helen is set on a concrete plinth on the pavement. It is made of a ceramic composition material and fits in the series of Johannesburg’s cultural legacy.
Originally, the Gavronsky family home stood on this generous-sized stand, possibly an acre in expanse, when Eton Road was a street of private upper-class homes in the premier suburb of Parktown. The original home is recalled by Helen’s daughters as Herbert Baker-designed, circa early 20th Century built of kopjie quartz stone. There was originally a tennis court in the garden. It was from this home that Helen Gavronsky was married (to Dr Moses Suzman) in 1937. Today, the site is occupied by a new office block of the Taback law firm and the property is owned by PPS (Professional Provident Society). The grounds exude an office park feel as an echo of the original gardens of the family home remains with established oak trees, shrubs and roses and a brick drive way leads to the garden terraces ending in the rear wall that backs onto Rockridge Road. Two doors away is the Donald Gordon Hospital, which now almost overwhelms the street.
Helen Gavronsky was born in Germiston on 7 November 1917. She was the second daughter of Samuel Gavronsky, a wholesale butcher who also dealt in hides and skin, and Frieda David. Her family were of Lithuanian Jewish immigrant stock. Frieda Gavronsky died two weeks after Helen’s birth, and Helen was nurtured by her maternal aunt, Hansa. In 1921, the Gavronsky family moved to a house in Alexandra Street, Berea, Johannesburg. Sam Gavronsky remarried in 1927 and relocated his family, comprising his new wife Debby and two daughters, Gertrude and Helen, to 13 Eton Road. Helen described her Parktown home in her memoir In No Uncertain Terms (1993) as “a sprawling old stone house in the suburb of Parktown, built by the famous English architect, Sir Herbert Baker, with a large garden shaded by huge oak trees and a tennis court”. She expands, “I loved the house, though it was freezing in winter, as it faced south (had Sir Herbert forgotten he had crossed the equator?”). This was the Gavronsky family home until Sam’s death in 1965. At the age of 10, Helen was enrolled at Parktown’s Holy Family Convent for girls, on Oxford Road (today the Holy Family College).
A Catholic convent, all girls and private, for a Jewish girl from an aspiring and successful immigrant family was perhaps a surprising choice, but not an unusual one. Helen commented that she went to the convent as in those days Anglican schools were reluctant to take Jewish children whereas Catholic schools were more willing to do so. Parktown Convent gave her a sense of status, identity and self-possession. Her world was shaped by an English-speaking, Anglo-Jewish middle class white Johannesburg milieu. Helen Gavronsky was remembered as a talented, precocious, charismatic pupil who had a certain presence from a young age. Today, the Holy Family College remembers her with a secluded rose garden and a memorial flagstone that recalls her time with and contribution to the convent.
Helen matriculated early at the age of 16. She enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand but did not complete her B Com degree until several years later, interrupting her studies to marry Moses Suzman. On marrying, she left her family’s Parktown home to live in Northcliff.
The plaque reads:
Helen Suzman – Fighter for justice and human rights, Helen Suzman (nee Gavronsky) lived in the original house on this stand until her marriage in 1937. She was awarded the Order of Merit (Gold) South Africa in 1995 for her 38 years’ struggle as a member in the white South African Parliament.
“Her courage, integrity and principled commitment to justice have marked her as one of the outstanding figures in our history” (Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela)
Johannesburg Heritage Foundation.
Unveiling of the plaque by the daughters of Helen Suzman, Patricia and Frances, 3 November 2017.
In my capacity of vice-chair of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, I paid tribute to Helen Suzman and reminded our group of the importance and success of the blue plaque movement in Johannesburg. Through this simple device, we are able to celebrate architecture, people, events, historic occasions and places. We tell the significant history in a mere 100 words and bring heritage and history to life. The blue plaque is a trigger to memory and a means of conveying the past with immediacy and visibility to a new generation.
Kathy Munro is an Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand. Having trained as an economic historian, she now researches and writes on historical architecture and heritage matters and has a regular book review column on the online Heritage Portal (where an earlier version of this article first appeared). She is Vice-chairperson of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation and a voluntary docent at the Wits Arts Museum.
