(AUTHOR: Stuart Buxbaum, Vol. 77, #3, Spring 2022)
This is the first part of a story chronicling the experiences and events during World War II (1939-1945) during which three uncles of the sisters Arlene Rubin (nee Egnal) and Denise Buxbaum (nee Egnal), were soldiers in the service of the Union of South Africa’s Defence Forces. The three uncles were the brothers Alec Hyman Egnal and Cyril Egnal and from the second branch of this extended family Max Sack. This first essay of a two-part series focuses on the early family history and the war record of Alec Hyman Egnal.
South Africans volunteered for duty in the Union Defence Force (UDF) during the conflict in the theatres of East Africa, North Africa and Italy in those almost six years. It is necessary to recall these three soldiers’ lives in that period of uncertainty, of danger and of extreme discomfort as part of the extended Egnal family’s archive of memories. Three uncles, soldiers all, in the most brutal event of the 20th Century. Memories of war, of tedium, of boredom and of danger, of adventure and tragedy infused the experiences of the soldiers themselves as well as the household and family memories of these three men.
A Note on Methodology and Sources
In this two-part series which follows the wartime experiences of the three soldiers, only in the case of one uncle, Cyril Egnal (who in his later years emigrated from South Africa to Canada), is there corroborative evidence in the form of a biography which chronicles his time spent in the SAAF/RAF during the war.[1] The information presented here is gleaned from the personal war time records of each of these three uncles. These records are housed in the recently established, splendidly impressive and immaculate stand-alone documentation centre of the Defence Force in Irene, Pretoria.[2] The stories related here result from the fleshing out of the almost hieroglyphic records of these servicemen at this repository. The records are “hieroglyphic” in the sense that to the untrained eye, to the uninitiated peruser of military documents, these handwritten contemporaneous files and cards detailing every officially ordered and sanctioned movement, transfer and placement of soldiers during World War II are peppered with handwritten military shorthand and abbreviations of a conflict now eighty years distant. From these records and a multiplicity of sources, the lives of the soldiers in those five years of horrific combat are placed in that larger, tumultuous context. Part narrative, part imaginative interpretation and assumption, the movements of the units to which these soldiers were assigned serve as a guide and are followed through the war. The protagonists’ experiences are placed in that context. Herewith follows that narration.
Family Origins: The Egnal Family and Di Alte Heym – the Old Country
Where did it all begin? It was an even previous generation’s doing, those who emigrated from Lithuania so that with time, their sons would go to war. And the families and those immigrant parents would suffer the anguish, the anxiety, the thirst for news from these three soldiers.
Alec and Cyril Egnal were the sons of Abraham Michael Egnal and Katie Sarah Ingel. The similarity of surnames reflects the fact that Abraham and Katie were first cousins. They immigrated to South Africa in 1905 from the north-western Lithuanian town of Kelme and were married in Cape Town.[3]
According to the Yiskor book of Kelme, that town lay between the towns of Shavele and Tavarig. The origin of the name Kelme derives from the word “tree trunk”, an old description referring to the cut trees which were used in the building of the town.[4] Near the end of the 19th Century, the census of Kelme (1897) showed that of a population of 3914 persons, 2710 were Jews, forming 69% of the population. “Every man, according to his level of Jewish learning, belonged to a Jewish study society in the shtetl”.[5] In 1923, there were between 1460 and 1600 Jews in the town, a decline of approximately 45% from the 1897 level.[6] Emigration was reducing the community’s size. There were no more prospects for its growth. Michael and Katie (then Ingel) had been a part of this population movement.
According to Shoenberg and Shoenberg, Kelme was regarded as a “prosperous, even rich town. The major trade was in grain, flax, seeds, animals and ‘bristles’”. The authors further write that the community was divided into three separate movements: A Musar movement, a German Haskalah movement, and a Zionist movement.[7] Masha Greenbaum elaborates on one aspect especially. She shows that the Musar programme of Reb. Israel Salanter of Memel spread among his scholars and rabbis and disciples to Telz, Minsk, Vilna, Mir, and via Reb Zisl Ziv of Kelm(e)”.[8] According to Greenbaum, “Lithuanian rabbis favoured the institution of the Maggid as an important tool in the dissemination of…Torah, Mussar and Piety” via sermons. In this context, Greenbaum mentions inter alia, “the great iterant Moshe Yitzchak Darshan of Kelm(e).”[9]
Max Sack was the South African-born son of David Sack, who was born in Vilna, Lithuania, around 1880. Max’s mother Anne Sack (born Rudolph) and father David were married in Vilna.[10]
The city of Vilna is first mentioned in the year 1323 in the letters of Gedimnas, his having had a dream about an iron wolf howling on a hilltop. The Lithuanian word for ‘wolf” is ‘Vilkas’.[11] Vilnius (Vilna) would become known as the “Jerusalem of the North”, so great a centre of Eastern European Jewry it would become. The name of Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon (1720-1797) is synonymous with Vilna. Known as the Gaon of Vilna, he lived in almost the very same era as did Rabbi Israel ba’al Shem Tov, the Besht (1700-1760). The Besht dwelt in small towns in the Ukraine and Galicia.[12] Menes writes of the differing approaches of these two scholastic giants: “The Besht attempted to bring the Divine Presence down to earth; the Gaon, on the contrary, tried to raise man to heaven.”[13] In the early 1840s, the Musar movement’s Rabbi Israel Salanter reached Vilna. According to Menes, in 1847 the Czarist government opened a rabbinical school in the city and offered the directorship to Salanter. “Rabbi Israel, however, categorically refused, and when the offer was made official by the government, he left Vilna.”[14]
In 1812, in his campaign against Russia, Vilna came under Napoléon’s control. He would return to Vilna, briefly, with his Grand Armée after the campaign’s failure. In tatters, his army would retreat from Moscow, pursued by Kutuzov, the commander of the Russian forces. Kutuzov rode into Vilna (Vilno), “his good old Vilno, as he used to say”.[15]
According to the Russian census of that year, in 1897 40% of the population of Vilna was Jewish. The German census of 1916 [16] showed that 43.5% of the population (61,265) was Jewish, while the Polish census three years later (1919) indicated a decline in the Jewish population to 36.1%.[17]
Family Resettlement: Di Naye Heym – The New Homeland
The Egnal Family
The settlement of Jews in the city of Johannesburg and its surrounds was one of humble beginnings. It required, as did the protagonist of Hyman Polski’s Yiddish tale “Der Tryer”, very many humble beginnings and multiple disappointments.[18] And so similarly, it would have been initially, certainly, for the Egnal family in their early home in Doornfontein. And for the Sack family in Alberton.
Doornfontein, already a more upmarket suburb than the earlier settlements of Jews in Ferreirasdorp and Marshalltown, was shtetl-like in its culture. Institutions and facilities abounded.[19] For the Egnals, these would have given a measure of comfort in an alien city. They would, as described by Cyril, gradually come to live in in a double storied house in Upper Page Street, a house his father Michael had built.[20] Quite rapid upward mobility and suburbanization indeed.
View of Doornfontein, 1889
The Sack Family
One can presume that David and Anne Sack arrived in South Africa around the time of the formation of the Union in 1910. They settled in the then small town of Alberton, and the family’s later address was in Third Avenue, which would become the wider, busy road, Van Riebeeck Avenue.[21] Four children would be born to Anne and David in South Africa: Fanny, Lily, Max and Sylvia. Anne Sack passed away when the children were young (October 1918), and David, a greengrocer by trade, would pass away at the time that World war 2 was already in its third year, in February 1943.[22] The harshness and hardships of leaving the familiar and entering the strange had quite probably affected the couple’s respective health and longevity.
Unlike Doornfontein, Alberton lacked the intensity of a cohesive Jewish community and its institutions. Nevertheless, a small, organised community had been established.[23] But, again in the manner described in Hyman Polski’, those “tryers” and the subsequent generation would become “South Africanised”.
New Lives, Doornfontein and Alberton
The heady maelstrom of school, friendships and sport rapidly and extensively helped acculturate the locally born generation of both the Egnal and Sack families. English replaced the centrality of Yiddish, especially in the broader social environment. Afrikaans too became added to the pool of languages, as did a smattering of Zulu words, terms and phrases. The Chedorim assured a familiarity with Hebrew and prayer. Cyril Egnal quite elegantly described the process. From age six, he followed the Hebrew School Talmud Torah, grade school was attended in Doornfontein and then Jeppe High school. And also as at many schools of that era,[24] ‘Cadets’ involving the wearing of military uniforms, discipline and marching in military formations was made familiar by those who would prepare the young men for the coming of conflict.
War clouds gathered slowly, and then both suddenly but inexorably spread across Europe.
The Coming of War
South Africa was closely allied with Great Britain under the 1931 Statute of Westminster.[25] By 1 September 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland, South African Prime Minister JBM Hertzog of the National Party had been joined in a unity government with the pro-British South African Party of JC Smuts, the two forming the ruling United Party. Parliament was urgently recalled. The issue of war in Europe had become extremely controversial in the country. South Africa was constitutionally obligated to support Great Britain. The Anglo-Polish military alliance obligated Britain and in turn its Dominions to help Poland if it was attacked by the Nazis.[26] When Poland was attacked, Britain declared war on Germany two days later. Smuts led those who wished to enter on the side of Great Britain while Hertzog wished to remain neutral. By a scant Seven Votes, parliament voted in favour of South Africa’s joining the British war effort, and on 6 September 1939 Smuts declared war.
EXCURSUS 1: VILNA
“On 18 September 1939, the Red Army occupied Vilna and its district together with the rest of the Soviet share of Poland, as agreed….under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of August 23, 1939.”[27]
Conscription or Volunteerism?
The South African situation, with its “internal schisms”,[28] did not adopt conscription to the army, instead relying on an entirely voluntary force apart from a small contingent of permanent officers and men. The army itself was woefully ill-equipped for war. It numbered only 5353 regulars and an additional 14 631 men in the Active Citizen Force. “Due to its race policies, it would only consider arming men of European descent, which limited the available pool of men aged between 20 and 40 years, to about 320,000.”[29] Nasson provides approximate figures for those recruits who served in the land forces during the war. He suggests that 132,000 were white, and 123,000 “African and Coloured recruits”.[30]
According to Cyril Egnal’s short biography, his brother Alec volunteered on the day the war was declared.
What spurred men to volunteer? Certainly it was an expression of the ethos of the time. According to Karen Horn, many saw it as a chance for adventure.[31] The prevailing view was that the war would be of short duration, and that the soldiers would be “home before Christmas”. For those unemployed or on the cusp of choosing a career, the army offered regular employment and pay. These practical, rational motives should not, however, obscure the deep-seated feelings of patriotism, of heroism and of duty. Then too, the social pressure exerted by peers to join was powerful. Stanley Smollan of the Transvaal Scottish recalls how easily he was roused by the wave of patriotism. And how he was influenced at school where local regiments were already training recruits through the school cadets”.[32] Horn also records the following: “We went and had a couple of beers after writing our exam and we said: ‘Look, what are we doing about war?’ And we said ‘well, we better go and join up’”. So after a couple of beers we joined up.” And then there were other, prosaic reasons for joining. “His reason”, writes Horn of a volunteer, “was not so much to join the UDF as to get away from home.”[33]
The Jewish community of the Union saw many of its young men volunteering to “join up”. Leibl Feldman, in his Yiddish history Yidden in Johannesburg,[34] writes concerning ‘English’ Jewish South Africans during the First World War. These Jews, Feldman suggests, were extremely patriotic and pro-Britain and were ready to join the war effort on her behalf. Patriotism was well entrenched. During the Second World War, this loyalty became even more evident. It became imperative in the eyes of many in the Jewish community to join the Defence force on the side of Britain in the battle against Germany.
The community was well aware of the great threat posed by Germany to European, indeed to World Jewry. They would take up arms to defeat the Wehrmacht and its brutal forces. Approximately ten thousand Jewish soldiers volunteered for the UDF during the course of the war. “Dramatic moments occurred. Thus, after a meeting of members of Balfour Park in Johannesburg – one of the favourite sports clubs of the Rand Jewish community – nearly seventy men came forward on the spot, formed themselves into fours and marched off to the Drill Hall.”[35]
Among the South African Jewish volunteers, there were also Jewish men not native to South Africa, but who had immigrated to the Union, seeking a safer haven. They exited Europe but would return in armour as part of the Defence Force in the battles against Germany. Among these soldiers, whose deeds are memorialised in the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre in Johannesburg are Herbert Lichtenstein, Monte Berel Goldberg and Leopold Spiegel.
Before even bravery on the battlefield was tested, courage of these volunteers was required to fend off the stigmatisation against them by that sector of the South African public opposed to participation in the war. Those who volunteered, as did Alec, would have taken the General Service Oath and been issued with the “red tabs”. These “were strips of orange-scarlet, prominently displayed on the shoulder to signify that the wearer was a volunteer”.[36] The Oath and the Red Tabs were derisively and contemptuously referred to as the “Red Oath” and “Rooi Luisies” (“red lice’). Among those publicising this sobriquet were members of the Ossewa Brandwag.
The personality of Smuts himself, calling for volunteers, proved to be a clarion call for enlistment.
Alec Egnal, soldier, # 77054V
At the age of twenty-one Alec Egnal (born 4 June 1918), a young and vigorous salesman, volunteered to join the Union Defence Force (UDF). It was the season of spring in the city of Johannesburg. His now previous civilian life of free associations would be exchanged for that of a serviceman in 2 Battalion, Regiment Botha, B Company.[37] Regiment Botha was so named in honour of the late first prime minister of the Union of South Africa and famed Anglo-Boer War General Louis Botha. The regiment had been formed in 1934. By 1939 there were two battalions, but only the second was mobilised, on 19 June 1940.[38]
Five months later, on 21 November, Alec embarked on the troopship Llanf Castle at Durban Port, and after a week at sea up the east coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, disembarked at the port of Mombasa, Kenya, on 27 November. By now Alec was listed as a lance corporal in the 2nd Regiment Botha of the 5th Infantry Brigade. Together with the 1st and 2nd Brigades, they constituted the 1st South African Division with Brigadier General George Brink as its commander. When Italy entered the war on the side of Germany on 10 June 1940, the territories it governed in East Africa comprised Abyssinia with Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. This led inevitably to the UDF troops being deployed to this war front.[39] At the peak of operations, there were 77 000 troops in neighbouring Kenya, of which 27 000 were South African.[40] The conditions in this theatre of war, which Alec and his regiment would have experienced, are described trenchantly by Richard Steyn in his biography of General Smuts: “The conditions were appalling, mountainous and desert, long marches in terrible weather. Addis Ababa was captured in April 1941. The Italian threat to Allied shipping was neutralised.” [41]
And so, after almost five months in East Africa, Alec again embarked on a troop ship, this time the Dunera,[42] and with his regiment and the 5th SA Brigade, arrived two weeks later at the Port of Suez (3/5/1941). [43] A glimpse of life aboard the Dunera that Alec would have experienced is illustrated by Rosmarin. About to board that liner in Durban Port, Rosmarin writes: “She looked significant and impressive. The NCOs shared second-class cabins. This was a great improvement on the other ranks who had to sleep in hammocks below deck.”[44] The campaign was moving from East Africa to North Africa. In January of that year, just prior to Alec’s arrival at Suez, General Wavell’s army had captured the deep-water port of Tobruk. And in April of that very year Alec would have known the dramatic news of the arrival in the desert of the Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel.
In Alec’s UDF war record, the next entry shows that on 9 July 1941 he was admitted to hospital. According to Cyril’s biography, [45] he was suffering from desert sores. This was a painful skin disease brought about by exposure to the sun, dryness, desert sand and heat which resulted in suppurating sores. Treatment involved healing those sores that caused an oozing on the skin. [46]
Three weeks later (1 August), having recovered sufficiently to resume normal duties, Alec is confirmed to be on the strength list of 2 Regiment. On the following entry, five days after New Year of 1942, he is reported to have been sent on a clerk’s course in the “middle east” But between the two entries of 1/8/1941 and 5/1/1942, decisive events were unfolding in the North African theatre of conflict.
In November of 1941, as part of Operation Crusader, the momentous conflict around the strategic airfield of Sidi Rezegh unfolded. The 5th Infantry Brigade of the 1st SA Division had gone into this action with a brigade strength of 5800 men and emerged after this battle of “Toten Sondag” with a strength of under 2000.[47] The balance had been killed, wounded or taken prisoner. This was Alec’s brigade. The battle continued through to 23 November. The gunners ran out of ammunition. Dickens’s view of Sidi Rezegh is that while initially this was a German success, it ultimately proved disastrous for the German Afrika Korps as they lost 72 tanks. This, Dickens suggests, would ultimately turn the tide in the North African theatre of operations in favour of the Allies.[48],[49]
The battle at Sidi Rezegh by the war artist Francoise Krige, brother to the famous Afrikaans novelist and poet, Uys Krige. Uys Krige was made a prisoner of war.[50]
Return to the Union
A few weeks later, Alec is selected to attend and be trained on a clerk’s course “in the Middle East”.[51] Having attended the course, at the beginning of April 1942 he is “instructed to RTTU for military duties”, the abbreviation being military shorthand for “return to the Union”. He boards the troopship Mauretania, certainly with great relief, en route back to Durban. According to Ports.com,[52] from Durban port to Suez port (El Suweis) in Egypt is a distance of 5005 nautical miles. The route is via the Indian Ocean, Mozambique Channel, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea to the Gulf of Suez. The return trip to the Union in the opposite direction, however, would have afforded soldiers a period of calm and recovery after the shattering effects of desert warfare. Of the fear, of the uncertainty, of the danger. But in those ten days at sea, Alec was aboard a ship with a special history. Would he and his now shipmates have been aware of this, and would they have reflected on how journeys at sea were essential for warfare on land?
EXCURSUS 2: THE MAURETANIA
The Mauretania was a vessel in the stable of the Cunard Line. It was built on the Mercy River [53]. The order for the ship was placed in June of 1936, for a ship of 35,000 gross tons. She was intended to ply the route between Southampton, Le Havre and New York, and was launched at Birkenhead on 28 July 1938. A crowd of about 40,000 persons assembled to view the launch, each having paid two shillings for the privilege.[54] The Mauretania was the twelfth largest, and sixth fastest liner in the world in 1939. Her average speed was between 20-22 knots per hour.
On 3 September 1939, the Mauretania arrived in Southampton with 740 passengers on board. There had been 262 passenger cancellations due to the deteriorating situation in Europe. The arrival at the Southampton docks was the very day war was declared on Germany. On 6 March 1940, a little over seven months after her launch, the ministry of war (transport) requisitioned her as a troopship. Within three weeks her luxury staterooms gave way to bunks, hammocks and mess tables for as many as 6500 troops. She was fitted with two 3-inch and one 6-inch guns, later increased to two 6-inch guns, three 12-pounders, twenty 20mm anti-aircraft guns and two rocket launchers. The Mauretania would henceforth, from May 1941, sail on the “Suez shuttle”: Bombay-Colombo-Durban-Port Tewfik (Suez) [55]
Alec aboard the troopship
The ship journey was not a comfortable one. It would have been made tolerable for Alec though. Homeward bound! Filled it was with imaginings of household domesticity, of his brothers and sisters and extended family. Suez bound on the other hand, would for him have been suffused with apprehension. The ‘there and back’ journeys were studies in emotional contrasts. Anticipation replaced apprehension, expectation replaced tension, and thoughts of the comforts of home would replace the tent and barracks, the home meal-time table in place of army rations eaten from tin ‘dixies’.
Amidst the occasional bouts of seasickness, there were diversions. An ex-serviceman who had connived to join the armed forces despite not having reached the compulsory minimum age, reminisced about makeshift social events on board, and endless card games. [56] On 14 April 1942, Alec stepped onto terra firma at Durban. Home! 600 kilometers away lay the Highveld and the city of Johannesburg. But he was already home. And to welcome him and the entire ship’s complement who were leaning out on the railings of the vessel as it edged its way into the harbour, was the heart-warming sight of the Lady in White, who was at her usual post and with song ushered the men to the pier. [57] And then, without much ceremony, Alec was whisked off for duty at the Union Base Depot.
Corroborating his brother Cyril’s account Alec, once in the Union, would use the opportunity to apply for three weeks’ leave from service.(3/5/1942.)[59] And in this short period of respite, he would, again in Cyril’s recollections, “marry his sweetheart, Doreen Lily Back.”[60] Alec’s subsequent residence has been located in Wolmaransstad,[61] an “historic town ….on the brink of the diamond fields.”[62] Just prior to going on furlough, he had received the welcome news that on expiry of his leave, he was not required to return to Suez and the desert, but would need to report, at the beginning of June 1942, to the Infantry Reserve Depot (IRD) at Zonderwater. So would begin a very different period in Alec’s military service, in the Union Defence Force. And so, soon after returning from leave and in uniform again, Alec was formally transferred to the 8th Battalion, 1st Reserve Brigade, POW Battalion guards.
Zonderwater
In January of 1941, General Archibald Wavell captured the deep-water port of Tobruk in Libya. During that attack, 38 000 Italian and Libyan soldiers were captured. [63] Of these, 25 000 were estimated to have been Italian. According to Spargo, [64] 60 000 enemy men had been captured in East Africa. Zonderwater, situated near Cullinan east of Pretoria and close to Baviaanspoort, would be these prisoners of war’s main destination for detention. It would be the largest POW camp created by the Allies. [65] South Africa was accessible from the north and east African war theatres, via relatively safe sea routes. Many of these POWs were shipped to the Union on the very same vessels that had brought South African troops like Alec to the conflict zones, after which they were transported from the docks by rail to the then tented camp, opened in 1941, next to the UDF training camp. But even prior to that, Zonderwater had been the site of a British concentration camp for Boer women and children, during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).
Some 120 000 Italian POWs passed through Zonderwater during the war. The camp, it must be noted, became “one of the finest POW camps in the world, being run strictly in accordance with the numerous and exacting requirements of the Geneva Convention of 1929.”[66] A huge camp, it stretched over hundreds of hectares and was divided into fifteen essentially autonomous blocks, each consisting of four ‘camps’ of 2000 men.[67] Naturally, at such a large camp with a multitude of captured soldiers, the UDF needed the camp to be guarded. Manpower that was not needed in the theatres of war was thus diverted to Zonderwater to do guard duty. This was onerous, taxing, boring. But a reprieve. A reprieve from the desert. A reprieve from the churning, windswept endless and featureless desert. A reprieve from danger. Among the guard and administrative servicemen was Alec Egnal. He was out of harm’s way and close to his newly established home in Wolmaransstad. Also among the POWs in the camp was the famous Italian sculptor, Eduardo Villa. Many would settle in South Africa at the cessation of hostilities in 1945. Their lives would provide a rich vein of narratives for South African fiction, inter alia Etienne van Heerden’s Die Swye van Mario Salviati.[68]
But for Alec, this reprieve was an interlude short lived. On a spring day in 1942 just three months later he was, at the whim of the Defence Force, transferred to Baviaanspoort. This was one of the camps where, “soon after the outbreak of the war, the Union government arrested numerous enemy aliens and various citizens considered to be a danger to the state”. [69] Other such camps were at Jagersfontein and Koffiefontein. At the latter camp, militants including the young Balthazar Johannes Vorster, were detained without trial. Vorster would go on to become prime minister of the Republic of South Africa [70].
But during his stay in uniform within the borders of the Union, Alec found himself in an unenviable situation. With his boots on the ground in South Africa, his thoughts were continuously elsewhere, perhaps. He would have listened obsessively to the news broadcasts of events “Up North” and consumed every scrap of information that he could lay his hands on in the newspapers. News too, would have been passed on ceaselessly within his unit here on home soil. Tobruk, that deep water port on the coastline and of such great strategic importance to both the Allied and Axis forces, saw a massive attack by the German army in June 1942. The garrison at Tobruk was made up, inter alia, of a South African division and an Australian division. The surrender of the garrison occurred on 21 June 1942, with 32 200 men handing in their arms and seeing out the rest of the war, in most cases, as prisoners of war. Of those taken prisoner, 10 720 were South Africans. [71] This news would have been devastating to Alec. He was experiencing what Hodges and Myers would come to term, “cognitive empathy.” This was the state of “having …. knowledge about the contents of another person’s mind, including how the person felt.” [72] He felt with the South African soldiers in their plight. But Alec’s spirits would have been immeasurably lifted by the news, approximately five months later on 11 November 1942, of Rommel’s defeat at the final battle at El Alamein, that small railway siding 150 miles West of Cairo.
When he was transferred to Baviaanspoort, Alec was promoted to 2nd Corporal. No doubt his qualities of reliability and responsibility had been noticed. The army would keep him at Baviaanspoort for almost a year. Still, home was close by, and he was serving his country. Alec got shifted around again on 19 August 1943 [73] and transferred, for what would be a short period, to the Hay Paddock POW/transit camp in Pietermaritzburg. The internees here were largely Italian troops. “It was mostly a tented camp, and in existence for five years. Alec’s duties here would probably have been two-fold. As referred to previously, eight months after first arriving in the Middle East, he had been sent on a clerk’s course. So presumably his administrative skills meant he could have been assigned to offices charged with the management of the POWs incarcerated in Hay Paddock. According to Van Heerden, the area occupied by Hay Paddock was “relatively large …… and all the tents were in ordered rows”. [74] Guarding the perimeter would undoubtedly also have been necessary.
At the beginning of September 1943, having spent 17 months in the Union at the POW camps of Baviaanspoort, Zonderwater and the Hay Paddock detention centre, Alec again found himself at the Port of Durban and for the fourth time since his enlistment, boarding a troopship once more Suez bound. The Lady in White would have sung to the troops and bade them well on their journey, into the eye of the storm. For it was on that very day, 3 September 1943, that the British Eighth Army landed in the toe of Italy. [75] The ship’s journey followed the route with which Alec was well familiar. It was a slow crawl to Suez lasting a month, slower than it took the Mauretania to Port Natal 18 months previously. The 5000 nautical miles were covered at a snail’s pace of 10 knots an hour. A month at sea, encapsulated in a troopship on the wide blue sea. While at sea, the troops would have heard the broadcast of General Dwight Eisenhower announcing the surrender of the Italian forces. Shortly after Alec’s landing at Suez, on 6 October 1942, the Soviet offensive was launched towards the Baltic States. [76]
EXCURSUS 3: Kelme
This offensive by the Russian army would, however, have been long too late for the Jewish community of Kelme, the erstwhile home of Alec’s father. At the site where the remnants of the community would meet their end, in August of 1941, the community’s rabbi, Rabbi Daniel, asked permission of the German commander to address his congregation one final time. “Permission was granted, on condition that the rabbi would be brief. (But the rabbi) … spoke softly and unhurriedly ……” [77]
Italy
Two weeks after his arrival at Suez (10/12/1943), [78] Alec was posted to 55 “Q” company of the 6th Armoured Division, Italy, where he underwent training at Helwan [79] with this division, in logistics. Partly, this re-organization of the 6th Division was due to the fact that far fewer men than expected volunteered their services, and so it would be necessary to convert one infantry division to an armoured division, as an armoured division would require fewer men. [80] The 6th SAAD arrived in Italy in February 1944.[81] The next brief, understated shorthand note in Alec’s war record reads “14 April 1944 aaI”[82] Shorn of its offhand even laconic abbreviation, in real, dramatic format, the abbreviation translates to The Allied Army in Italy.[83]. In the book concerning the participation of South African Jews in World War 2, it is recorded that in Italy “the fierce struggle of the 6th South African Armoured Division played a notable role.”[84] Also in April 1944, 6th division troops arrived in Taranto Italy.[85] Rome would be taken by the Allies in early June 1944.[86] The armoured brigade progressed south of Florence and formed the left flank of the Eighth army at Florence. The division would hold the heights dominating the Arno Valley and the approach to Florence. Alec would have moved along with the division through the harsh conditions, the artillery shells, the bombing. Joel Mervis, later the famed editor of the Sunday Times, described scenes of “the area …darkened with shattered tanks, guns littering cratered fields” [87]. In October 1944, the 6th entered a savage part of the campaign. The objective was Bologna. Winter was approaching, soldiers endured without a “change of clothing and lived in water clogged slit trenches,” under fire. [88] Praising the efforts of the division and the South African soldiers General Mark Clark, quoting Jan Smuts, said that Field Marshal Smuts “had made it clear that the Union of South Africa intended to do its part in the war – and it most certainly did”. [89]
EXCURSUS 4: Two brothers meet quite by chance, twice, in World War II
While Alec had been in the army for almost three years, his younger brother Cyril, now part of the South African Air Force, was sent to the Middle East. He arrived on 21 December 1943. It so happened that Alec was at that very time in Egypt on leave from the Italian front. Cyril takes up the story: “The night I arrived in Cairo I went to a nightclub, and who did I meet there but the brother above me (Alec) in our family of seven brothers and sisters.” [90] There were any number of such entertainment establishments in Cairo at the time, from the dingy to the stylish. Alec would have been thirsty for news from home, plying his recently arrived brother Cyril with question upon question of family, of home, and off course about his so recently wedded wife, Doreen Lily. Cyril, so many years later, reflected on this reunion: “We had a wonderful evening together.” [91] Where could the brothers have met that evening in Cairo, a city the nightlife of which was said to rival that of cosmopolitan metropolises like Berlin and New York? A pamphlet intended to direct and orient Allied soldiers stationed in the city and on leave from Italy admonished them to remember that they were “representing their unit in the capital city of Egypt.” [92] So Alec and Cyril would have been under some pressure to behave themselves. The guide lists a number of clubs and places of entertainment for the soldiers, including the Empire Services Club, The Springbok Club and a Jewish Soldiers’ Club. But indeed, there were many more places of recreation that did not make it onto the guide list. Not mentioned was the Sheherezad Club, the Turf Club, or the famous Shepheards Hotel, sought after for the potent cocktails offered at its Long Bar. [93] Irrespective of the venue, the brothers would certainly have enjoyed a few tankards of Cairo’s best, the very popular “Stella” beer.
And then, intriguingly, the two brothers meet again, this time in Tel Aviv. This fleeting meeting would most likely have occurred during the first five months of 1944. Cyril was now part of the Royal Air Force, stationed in Palestine. [94] Tel Aviv was by then already flourishing. However, the mood at that time in the city was tense and less welcoming. The feeling towards the British was ambivalent. Britain during this period of its mandate had vigorously restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine. Had not David Ben Gurion, the then chairman of the Jewish Agency, famously proclaimed that the Yishuv would fight the White Paper [95] as if there was no Hitler, and fight Hitler as though there was no White Paper?
Other thoughts would have occupied the brothers’ minds. They were probably well aware that in that central area of Tel Aviv, the Italian Air Force had, on 9 September 1940, launched a bombing raid which caused devastating damage and the death of 137 residents. But for that moment, those thoughts would have been relegated to the sub-conscious. What would have occupied the minds of the two brothers that evening was the need to find a convivial salon for a few celebratory moments together. There were any number to choose from. There was Café Tamar, there were The San Remo, Café Herlinger and Sheleg Halevanon.[96] There was also Kassit, the latter generally the habitué of the intellectuals in the city. Most probably, however, they would have chosen Café Pilz, on the Tel Aviv beachfront. Pilz was the haunt of English- speaking officers from the various British armies. [97] A gatekeeper was installed at the entrance to ensure that regular troops could not enter. Still, there is little doubt that Lieutenant Cyril Egnal would have exercised his very considerable charm and ushered in his corporal brother. In that rare moment of togetherness, they could well have toasted each other with Tel Aviv’s then finest ale, Nesher, the “pale lager beer produced from various grains.” [98] Then the close friendship of the brothers in arms would have burned brightly. A fortuitous meeting under unlikely circumstances far away from home when the war would still drag on for more than a year…
“By the beginning of April 1945, it had become obvious that the war was fast coming to a close. The 6th South African Armoured Division was very involved in the steady push towards Austria and Germany as part of the 8th Army. Every member of the division all had only one ambition – that their luck would hold out so that they could see out the end of the war.” [99]
On 29 April 1945, the German Commander Kesselring signed the instrument of surrender at the headquarters of Field Marshal Alexander at Caserta. [100] Kesselring would be tried by the British in 1947 for war crimes and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment and then released in 1952. On 14 May 1945, the 6th SA Armoured Division held a victory parade in Monza, Italy. [101]
On 28 June 1945, 2nd Corporal Alec Egnal, # 77054V, was placed on the list for RTTU, Return to the Union. Finally. He was to be demobilized at last, after five long years in uniform.
Getting Home
Getting the South African soldiers home after the cessation of hostilities proved to be a major logistical exercise. The Defence Force had hurriedly to make plans. 5000 troops per month were to be brought home by air, each month, commencing 1 July 1945.[102] A further 15000 were to be transported home by sea during the second half of the year, so that 45 000 soldiers would be repatriated by the end of the year.[103] Barney Gordon, a soldier who joined the UDF as a teenager and saw the war through, was instructed by his parents not to return home by air, but to wait for sea transport. The risks, his parents felt, were too great for him to return home by airplane. [104] The many air crashes, and the death of Major-General Dan Pienaar, killed in an air crash in Kenya in 1942 on his way back to South Africa, remained fresh in the servicemen’s minds. The late Advocate Jules Browde recalled his end of the war experience on the flight home. “(in) the Dakota he and a number of other South Africans was travelling on got into difficulties when first one, then a second engine cut out. In the end the pilot, managed to make a forced landing in Crete….” [105]
By 25 January 1946, 101 676 soldiers had been ferried back to South Africa. The last aircraft left Egypt on 26 February 1946. [106]
Alec
Alec, however, did not have that long to wait. De-mobbed on 28 June 1945, he went through the first stages of returning home, back home to peace, to the familiar landscape, to his family. To his father, his brothers, and his sisters. He looked forward especially to being reunited with his wife Doreen Lily, whom he had married while still being in uniform.
Thus, in July of 1945, Alec was aboard a small Ventura craft, en route to Khartoum. The excitement on board would have been palpable, the relief quite unimaginable. The young men on the small craft were going home. The Eastern Province Herald newspaper, headquartered in Port Elizabeth, took up the story of the Ventura’s flight to Khartoum. In its edition of Thursday, 19 July 1945, in a short news item, it reported as follows: “Khartoum aerodrome is a large flat landing ground situated at the junction of the two Nile’s. (sic) It has long, wide tarmac runways which are smooth for landing, but which are subject to flooding in wet weather. The approaches are clear and safe.” [107]
In the month of July, the weather in Khartoum is usually scorchingly hot. Precipitation amounts to 30 mm (1.2 inches), distributed over four days. The average wind speed is 19kph (11 mph). [108] The plane which approached the airport that day had a compliment of three crew members and thirteen passengers. The aircraft was a Lockheed B-34 Ventura 11, # 6094 of shuttle services.
The Eastern Province Herald continues its report:
“The Department of Defence regrets to announce that a Ventura aircraft of the shuttle service with a crew of three and thirteen passengers, crashed on landing at Khartoum yesterday afternoon. There were no survivors. The next of kin have been notified.”
Alec Egnal, aged 27 years, husband of Doreen Lily Bach Egnal, son of Abraham and the late Katie Egnal, brother of Rose, Bertha, Becky and Dora, and of Isaac (Itz) and Cyril, was buried in grave 6.E.3 in the Khartoum War Cemetery, in the Sudan. The death notice of 2nd Corporal Alec Egnal which was issued by the Department of Defence in fulfilment of the Requirements of the Administration of Estates Act 1913, records, in those spaces provided for the house, town, place or district of the deceased, in bold, handwritten capitals:
“IN THE NORTH ON ACTIVE SERVICE.”
APPENDIX: Medals Awarded to Alec Hyman Egnal
Alec Egnal was awarded a number of medals for his service in the Union Defence Force during World War 11, 1939-1945. It is recorded that on 5 December 1944, he “made application for the awarding of the Africa Star Medal (without clasp), by virtue of services for 2nd Regiment Botha, Abyssinia and Middle East, from 22/11/1940 to April 1942.” [109]
On 1 May 1946, the Office of War Records in Hamilton Street, Pretoria, wrote a short, poignant yet matter of fact letter to Mrs D. R. (sic) Egnal of 203 Braemar Court, Claim Street, Hillbrow, Johannesburg. It read: “Dear Sir/Madam. With Reference: Stocks of Italy Star Ribbon have now arrived from Overseas. I attach hereto two and a half inches of the Ribbon in terms of the above-mentioned authority.”
The letter is signed by the Colonel, Officer of War Records. The medals awarded to Alec Hyman Egnal for his services in the Defence Force of the Union of South Africa during World War Two, were the 1939-45 Star, The Africa Star, The Defence Medal (British), The War Medal 1939-1945 (The World War Two Victory Medal), the Africa Service Medal and The Italy Star.
Pictured below, as illustration, are four medals, courtesy of Mr. Ron Gordon, [112] which were awarded to his late father, Serviceman Hyman Gordon. These medals are respectively: The 1939-1945 Star; The Africa Star: The World War Two Victory Medal [113]; and The Africa Service Medal.
A memorial plaque in remembrance of Alec Egnal was laid on the grave of his elder brother Isaac (Itz) Egnal (d. 22/06/1956) in the West Park Jewish Cemetery in Johannesburg. The photograph of A E Egnal below appeared in both The Jewish Times (7/09/1945) and The Zionist Record (27/07/1945).
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Elona Steinfeld, researcher at Beit Hatefutzoth for her ever preparedness to assist in retrieving information from hidden quarters and corners of the South African Jewish country communities. My thanks are at the same time also expressed to Eric Mathobo, librarian and archivist at the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. I wish also to express my admiration for the excellent library maintained at the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre in Forrest Town, Johannesburg and to its librarian, Val Kosseff. The Centre offers excellent facilities for research.
I extend my thanks to my wife Denise Buxbaum (nee Egnal), niece to these three uncles, for having proofread this article. I, however, retain responsibility for any errors in the body of the article.
Stuart Buxbaum holds an honours degree in Sociology from Wits University (1970) and an honours degree in Judaica from UNISA (1984). After working in the social research unit of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies in the early 1970s, he farmed for many years in Mpumalanga. His previous contributions to Jewish Affairs include a three-part history of Herber House, a boarding facility for Jewish youth from the country districts attending King David school, which appeared in 2019-2020.
References and Bibliography
[1] Egnal, Cyril. “Great Great Uncle Cyril Egnal.’ Unpublished monograph, pp 53-62. Autobiography as dictated to, and assisted by his nephew, Avron Mintz, circa 2005-2008.
[2] The South African National Defense Force Documentation Centre, (Military Archives). Herein to be referred to as DODA.
[3] Egnal C, op.cit. p53
[4] Yiskor Book, Kelme. “The Life of the Jewish Community and its Tragic End.” Kelme Jewish Gen, updated 16/09/2005.
[5] Kelme Yiskor book, op.cit. Part 1.
[6] Shoenberg, N and Shoenberg, S. Lithuanian Jewish Communities. Garland Publishing Inc.,New York and London, 1991
[7] Ibid, op cit
[8] Greenbaum, M. The Jews of Lithuania: A History of a remarkable Community, 1316-1945.Geffen Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1995.
[9] Ibid, p 113.
[10] Kotzen, S. “Family Ties.” Unpublished monograph. Chapter 5: “Chana and family.” Also, the official death notice of David Sack, “Administration of Estates Act of 1913”. My thanks are expressed to Galia Buxbaum for her diligent search of this and other documents from official sources.
[11] Letters of Gediminas. https://en.wikipedia.or.wiki/Letters . Accessed 06/04/2022
[12] Menes, A. “Patterns of Jewish Scholarship in Eastern Europe”, pages 177-227 in The Jews. Their Religion and Culture, editor: Louis Finkelstein, Schocken Books, New York, 1975.
[13] Ibid., p.198
[14] Ibid., p.212
[15] Tolstoy, L. War and Peace, Vintage books, London,2009. Translated by Pevear, R and Volokhonsky, L. p1098
[16] “The Grand Duchy of Lithuania”, https.//en.wikipedia.org>wiki>History_of_Vilnius. Accessed 28/04/2022
[17] Ibid.
[18] Polski, H. “Der Tryer” A short story in his book In Afrike, (Yiddish). Pacific Press, Pty ltd., Johannesburg, 1952. Pp 9-13.
[19] See inter alia, Rubin, M, The Jewish Community of Johannesburg, 1886-1939: Landscapes of Reality and Imagination. M.A. Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2004; Feldman, l. The Jews of Johannesburg, (Yiddish), The South African Yiddish Cultural Federation, Johannesburg, 1956; and Shapiro, J. The Streets of Doornfontein, ISBN Number 978-0-620-47340-8, 2010
[20] Egnal, C. op. cit. p53. “Our property stretched from Upper Page Street to Upper Ross, with the main entrance in Upper Ross Street.”
[21] Kotzen, op. cit. Chapter 2.
[22] Death notice, David Sack, op. cit.
[23] Jewish Life in the South African Country Communities, Volume V1, Kadimah Print, Cape Town, pp7-12
[24] Egnal, op. cit. p54.
[25] 26. Bourhill, J. Come back to Portofino. Through Italy with the 6th South African Division. 30 degrees South Publishers (Pty) Ltd, Johannesburg, 2011.
The Ossewa Brandwag, formed in 1938, were ardent supporters of Germany in the war years. Manie Maritz was a prominent member of this right-wing organization. While a pupil at Grey College in Bloemfontein, he drew up a petition to have the Jewish pupils expelled from the college… (Bourhill, p25)
[26] Steyn, R. Jan Smuts. Unafraid of Greatness, Jonathan Ball, Johannesburg and Cape Town, 2016.
[27] Shoenberg and Shoenberg, op.cit., p228
[28] South African Jews in World War 11. Issued by the Jewish Board of Deputies, Eagle Press ltd, Johannesburg, Transvaal, 1950. P7
[29] South Africa in World War 11 in.en.wikipedia.org?wiki/Military_history_of South _Africa_during_World_War_11
[30] Nasson, B. South Africa at War 1939-1945. Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd. 2012. p19
[31] Horn, K. In Enemy hands. South African POWs in World War 11, Jonathan Ball, 2015. P5
[32] Horn. op.cit. p9
[33] Ibid p 2.
[34] Feldman, Leibl. The Jews of Johannesburg. (Yiddish), The South African Yiddish Cultural Federation, Johannesburg, 1956. P 275.
[35] South African Jews in World War 11 op.cit. p 5
[36] Bourhill, J. op.cit. p 26
[37] DODA file, Alec Hyman Egnal, #77054V
[38] Engelbrecht, L. Fact File: Regiment Botha, Defense Webb,17 June 2010. Accessed 2017/11/27
[39] Leibenberg, E. “The Springboks in East Africa: The role of1 SA Survey Company (SAEC) in the East African Campaign of WW 11,1940-1941. Scienta Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Volume 44, Number 2, 2016, pp 87-
[40] Katz, D.B., South Africans versus Rommel: The Untold Story of the Desert War in World War 11, Stackpole Books, The United Kingdom, 2018. p.34
[41] Steyn, Richard. Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness, op cit.,p 136.
[42] The Dunera had been a peace- time troopship which plied between Southampton and Bombay, carrying British Army families.” Rosmarin, op. cit. p4.
[43] DODA file, Alec Hyman Egnal, #77054V
[44] Rosmarin, ibid.
[45] Egnal, C. op. cit. p 33.
[46] The treatment involved the use of an ointment made by crushing a tablet of sulphapyridine in 2 oz of paraffin molleflavine and the covering of the sore with Elastoplast or sticking plaster for three to five days.
“War surgery and Medicine: Desert Sores””, p691 http://nzetc.Victoriaac.nz/tm/scholarly…… Accessed 27/02/2022
[47] Roux, E. op.cit., p34
[48] Dickens, P., “Sidi Rezegh – The South African sacrifice resulted in the turning point of the Battle.” Military History Journal Vol 14 No 5, June 2009.
[49] Eddie Roux writes about the aftermath of the battle of Sidi Rezegh: “At Sidi Rezegh, there was severe fighting in which South African soldiers were killed, among them a number of African stretcher bearers. They were buried in a common grave. When South African army headquarters heard of this, an order was sent commanding the disinterment of the bodies and the burial of white and black in separate graves.” Time Longer than Rope, op. cit. p307
[50] The picture of a painting by Francois Krige appeared in Rapport Weekliks a supplement to the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper, Rapport, 2 December 2021.
[51] DODA file, Alec Hyman Egnal, #77054V
[52] Ports.com (/) http://.com/sea-route/port-of-durban,south-africa/suez-port-el-suweis,egypt/. Accessed 2018/03/26.
[53] 52. www.liverpoolships.org.http//wwwliverpoolships.org/Mauretania_1939_ Accessed 2018/03/26
[54] Ibid.
[55] Ibid.
[56] Barney Gordon served in the UDF and returned home by ship from Suez at war’s end. He was a flag bearer for the Jewish Ex Service League at the annual Day of Remembrance (Yom Hashoah) ceremony at the West Park Jewish Cemetery in Johannesburg. Mr. Gordon passed away in 2021. (Personal communication.)
[57] The Lady in White was Pierla Siedle-Gibson, who sang to the troops in their going and coming at the port. Dressed as always, she would be in “a wide brimmed hat and billowing white dress, holding a megaphone.” Bourhill, op. cit., p 63
[58] https://samilhistory.com/2018/06/23/an-unsung-icon-of-liberty-the-lady-in-white/
[59] DODA file, Alec Hyman Egnal, #77054V
[60] Egnal, C. op.cit
[61] South African Jewish Times, 7 September 1945. This article records that Alec was “Husband of Mrs D.L. Egnal Box 32 Wolmaransstad”. Interestingly, an entry in the Zionist Record of 27 July 1945 records him as a resident of Pietersburg. In that Zionist Record’s entry, it is nevertheless recorded that Doreen Lily Bach was from Wolmaransstad.
[62] South African Jewish Times, 21 February 1947. In this article, the writer Arthur Markowitz records a presence of 20 Jews in Wolmaransstad.
[63] Pitt, B. The Crucible of War: Wavell’s Command. Cassel and Company. London, 2001. p120
[64] Spargo, P., Zonderwater, “Almost certainly the largest Allied POW Camp in the World.” The Heritage Portal. Www the heritageportal.co.za/article/, Accessed 1/7/2020.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Ibid.
[67] Ibid.
[68] Van Heerden, E. Die Swye van Mario Salviati. ‘n Roman. Tafelberg Uitgewers, Kaapstad. 2000. By way of introducing the novel’s eponymous hero, Van Heerden writes: “The Italian Prisoners of War from Zonderwater Prison arrive at Tallejare”, p28
[69] Spargo, op. cit. p3/8.
[70] Steyn, R. Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness. Op. cit. p133
[71] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_capture_of_Tobruk
[72] Myers, M.W and Hodges, S.D. The Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, quoted in “The Psychology of Emotional and Cognitive Empathy, Lesley University. https://lesley.edu/article/the-psychology-of-emotional-and-cognitive-empathy
[73] DODA file, Alec Hyman Egnal, #77054V
[74] Van Heerden, P. HayPaddock POW/transit camp in Pietermaritzburg. In Treasure Hunters Forum.http://treasurehunters.co.za/forums/show-your-finds/hay-paddock-powtransit camp in…. Accessed 2018/03/26.
A church was erected by Italian prisoners of war of Camp 4. It is still used by the Italian community in that city.
[75] Messenger, C. The Second World War in the West. Cassel and Company, London, 1999. p17
[76] Ibid.
[77] Gilbert, M. The Holocaust. The Jewish Tragedy. Harper Collins Ltd.1978 p184.
[78] Egnal, C. op. cit. p56
[79] Helwan has been termed a “home” base for the UDF in Egypt during World War 11. It was a so called “Reserve and Transit” (R and T) depot. It was a large site in the desert, south of Cairo. It included housing for a large number of soldiers and a hospital. Helwan would at war’s end attain notoriety for the so-called “Helwan Riots “of 20 August 1945, when South African soldiers expressed their frustration concerning, inter alia, the delay in being expeditiously shipped back home.
[80] According to Orpen, N. Victory in Italy. South African forces: World War 11, and quoted in “6th Armoured Division (South Africa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_Armoured_Division_(South_Africa), Accessed 2017/12/04
[81] Williams, D. Springboks,Troepies and Cadres. Stories of the South African Army 1912-2012, Tafelberg, 2012. p120.
[82] DODA file, Alec Hyman Egnal, #77054V
[83] “As retribution for the Tobruk disaster, the British Command wanted to sideline the 6th SA Armoured Division and allocate it to Palestine for the rest of the war. But Churchill influenced by Smuts, insisted that the 6th join the war in Italy and not just sit out the conflict in Palestine. Dickens, The Observation Post, op. cit.
[84] South African Jews in World War 11, op. cit. p 60
[85] Orpen, N. Victory in Italy. South African forces: World War 11, op. cit.
[86] Ibid. 80. Among the soldiers was Captain Henry Sonnabend. He had written the seminal survey of Jews in Johannesburg (South Africa), pertaining to the census year of 1936. The study is located in the Board of Deputies archive. Sonnabend would later become the mayor of Ashkelon, Israel.
[87] Williams D. Springboks,Troepies and Cadres, op. cit p123
[88] Ibid. p123
[89] Ibid, p124, inter alia.
[90] Egnal, C. op. cit. p56
[91] Ibid.
[92] Guide published by the Co-Ordinating Council for the Welfare of the Troops in Egypt. http://www.warlinks.com/cairo.shtml. Accessed 17/04/2020
[93] Shepheards Hotel. En.wikipedia.org/wiki/shepheards%27s_Hotel#…. Accessed 27/04/2022
[94] DODA file, Cyril Egnal, # 542478
[95] The White Paper of 1939, a policy paper issued by the British Government led by Neville Chamberlain, severely restricted Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine.
[96] My thanks to Ian Dreyer, ex-South African, a Hebrew to English translator living in Ramat Gan, who was able to dig up information on the Tel Aviv café scene in the 1940s
[97] My thanks to Steven Jaffe, ex- South African, (King David Linksfield matric class of 1965), a retired tourism executive now living in Kfar Saba, Israel, for researching and providing the names of these coffee shops and bars in Tel Aviv of the 1940s
[98] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesher_Beer
[99] Webster, S. “The Helwan Riots August 1945”. Military History Journal, Vol 12 No3 – June 2002, p3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helwan_riots_ (1945). Accessed 2017/12/04.
[100] North, J (ed). The Alexander Memoirs 1940-1945. Cassel and Company, London, 1961. P149.
[101] ‘Veterans Voices’ in the journal Jewish Affairs. Rosh Hashanah edition, 2015. p14.
[102] Webster, S. op. cit.
[103] Ibid.
[104] Personal communication with the present author.
[105] ‘Veterans Voices’, op. cit.
[106] Webster, S. op. cit. p2.
[107] Eastern Province Herald, 19 July 1945
[108] Climatestotravel.com/climate/sudan/Khartoum#. Accessed 3/14/2022.
[109] DODA file, Alec Hyman Egnal, #77054V
[110] My thanks to Ron Gordon, ex South African (King David Linksfield matric class of 1965) now resident in Perth, Australia, for providing this picture of his late father’s World War 2 medals. His father served in the UDF between the years 1942-1944, in the 1st Imperial Light Horse.
[111] The World War 2 medal depicts a lion rampant astride two dragons. The imagery represents the victorious lion triumphant over the two defeated axis dragons.
