Celebrating 100 – looking back to a different time

ISAAC REZNIK

He had written to her and sent a photograph of his late father, Reverend Abraham Levy, who had entertained King George VI, his wife, Princess Margaret and the present queen on their visit to South Africa in 1947.

Denzil was an architect, having obtained his degree from Wits University and had a private practice in Port Elizabeth. From the outset of his career, he contributed selflessly to various organisations that promoted culture, religion and the arts.

His involvement in Jewish religious life in Port Elizabeth, stems from his background. His father rendered distinguished service to Port Elizabeth Hebrew Congregation over many years. The communal centre in the city, which housed the main shul, was named after him.

Denzil has played an extremely active role in various aspects of Port Elizabeth community life – also among non-Jews – but his greatest contribution has been to the fine arts. He was a founder member of the King George VI Art Gallery Association in 1972, serving as vice-chairman for 15 years and chairman for another 16 years.

However, Denzil will never forget being a 17-year-old in 1934 when his father was first confronted by the libellous, trumped-up charges against him and Port Elizabeth’s Jewish community by the notorious anti-Semitic organisation, the Greyshirts.

Reverend Levy, with the support of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, instituted the libel action against Johannes von Moltke, at the time leader of the South African Gentile National Socialist Movement, David Hermanus Olivier, editor of Die Rapport, the official organ of the South African Gentile National Socialist Movement and Harry Victor Inch, the Eastern Cape leader of the Greyshirts.

The three eventually faced trial at Grahamstown for having defamed the Jewish people and Rev Levy in particular, by the publication of libellous statements against them.

Von Moltke maintained he had “incontrovertible proof” of the existence of a secret Jewish plot to destroy the Christian religion and overthrow the existing order. At a public meeting in the Market Square of Aberdeen on March 27, 1934, Von Moltke and his cronies announced that the proof was contained in a secret document allegedly stolen from the Western Road Synagogue in Port Elizabeth and signed by the synagogue’s Rabbi Avraham Levy – father of Denzil.

Von Moltke repeated his allegations at a public meeting a few days later in the Feather Market Centre in Port Elizabeth.

The so-called “secret document”, was a clumsy and illiterate concoction, purported to be a copy of “lectures”. The contents of these so-called “lectures” were obviously inspired by the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and included scurrilous caricatures of the English, Dutch, and black inhabitants of South Africa, the Jews’ plans for world domination and revenge and for the victory of communism.

This led to the sensational Greyshirts’ libel trial which ended in the obvious vindication of the Jewish community and Rev Levy.

The so-called “stolen” document followed closely the highly discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a pamphlet of some 70 pages purporting to be the actual minutes of 24 speeches made by Jewish leaders during the First Zionist Congress in 1897.

The pamphlet detailed, inter alia, a satanic plot by Jewish/Zionist conspirators to conquer the world.

The libel trial took place in Grahamstown before Judge-President Sir Thomas Graham and Justice Gutche.

The Greyshirts numbered at its peak some 2 000 members. The core of its ideology was racist anti-Semitism. Following the German Nazi model, the Greyshirts claimed that inter alia Jews were an Asiatic, anti-Christian and inassimilable race who were inherently anti­social and parasitic. Moreover, they were organised internationally in a world conspiracy that aimed at global domination.

On August 24, 1934, Judge President Graham, with Mr Justice Gutche concurring, delivered a lengthy judgment. The court unequivocally accepted the evidence of Reverend Levy, and his witnesses and denounced the documents as a forgery.

No such document had in fact ever existed in the synagogue and it was clear some Greyshirts had deliberately concocted the false document. An amount of £1 000 damages was awarded against Inch, £750 against Von Moltke and £250 against Olivier, with costs in each case.

Following the evidence which he had given in the case, Inch was subsequently criminally indicted and was found guilty of compiling a forged document, making false statements in affidavits and of perjury. He was sentenced to several years’ imprisonment.

Members of the Greyshirts movement, later known as the Brown shirts, which evolved into the Ossewa-Brandwag, were Nazi sympathisers, such as Robey Leibbrandt, John Vorster (who later became prime minister) and “Lang Hendrik” van den Berghe (who later became head of the Bureau for State Security, more commonly known as BOSS) They were among those arrested by the government of General Jannie Smuts and convicted on treason charges, which carried the death penalty.

They were pardoned when the National Party came into power in 1948.

During the 14 years his father was dealing with this, Denzil finished school at Grey High School in Port Elizabeth. He then joined the South African Airforce in February 1941, serving in East Africa for a time and then in Egypt, until September 1943. He was discharged in 1945 when the war ended.

As a known philanthropist, he has served the community of Port Elizabeth for some 60 years through his involvement in no less than 39 public committees and trusts devoted to the promotion of a wide range of social, religious and cultural pursuits vital to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality.