Memory Against Forgetting

"Rusty" Berstain was arrested at Lilliesleaf Farm, Rivonia, on 11 July 1963 and tried for sabotage, alongside Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and other leaders of the African National Congress and Umkhonto we Sizwe in what came to be known as the Rivonia Trial. Finally acquitted in June 1964, he was, however, immediately rearrested. When he was released on bail, he and his wife Hilda fled into exile, followed soon afterwards by their family. This text is a remarkable man's personal memoir of a life in South African resistance politics from the late 1930s to the 1960s. In recalling the events in which he particpated, and the way in which the apartheid regime affected the lives of those involved in the opposition movements, Rusty Bernstein provides insights into the social and political history of the era.