Content
My sister Sara
Ruth WeissMeine Schwester Sara
Augsburg: Maro-Verlag, 2002
257 S.
ISBN 3-87512-260-7
Taschenbuchausgabe: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, 2004
From 14 years and older
Shortly after the end of the Second World War, four year old Sara Lehmann came by boat to South Africa along with other German orphans. She is adopted by the Afrikaner family Leroux and lovingly given a home. The father is enthusiastic about the blond, blue-eyed adopted daughter he had wished for, particularly because of the pure German blood that will be good for his people. Since her papers were delayed, the father learns only later that Sara is a Jewish girl. As a strict, Dutch Reformed pater familias and member of the Apartheid government as well as of the Broederbond, it is impossible for him to continue loving this child and he withdraws all love and affection from her, without ever explaining his reasons to the child.
The eldest brother, Jo, is given the task of taking care of Sara. As an old man, suffering from leukaemia, he finds a photograph of Sara as he clears up his house and tells her life story.
The novel depicts Sara’s life, her conflict with Apartheid, her experiences in the family, at school and during her studies. Only much later – during a trial in which she is accused of violating an Apartheid law does Sara hear about her Jewish origins and then the story takes a tragic turn.
Rolf Annas, 2011
translated by Catherine du Toit
translated by Catherine du Toit
Review
Ruth Weiss: Meine Schwester Sara
(My sister Sara)
This youth novel which was published by Maro in 2002 can also be enjoyed by adult readers. It is based on historical facts and essentially covers the time period from 1948 when the National Party came to power in South Africa until the Soweto riots in 1976. Since the story is told in 2000, the reader is also informed about the end of Apartheid in the nineties. A timeline and a glossary with explanations of South African expressions, personalities and institutions enable the reader to familiarize himself with the material.
“Meine Schwester Sara” (My sister Sara) is the most successful novel by Ruth Weiss and in the last few years it has even been prescribed in schools in some of the German federal states. The novel succeeds in dealing with the theme of racism with little sentimentality and without being pedantic while establishing a comparison between National Socialism with the persecution of Jews in Germany and Apartheid in South Africa.
On the one hand, Weiss introduces the importation of National Socialist ideals to South Africa with the image of the innocent orphans. A group of two to fourteen year old German orphans indeed came to South Africa in 1948 to give the Afrikaner nation an injection of fresh German-Aryan blood. On the other hand, her main intention is to show where racism leads as the Jewish born Sara like the black people of the country are treated differently and considered inferior because of their origins. The consequences of this discrimination become clear in the novel since Sara who does not know of what she is “guilty” and does not understand why she is treated differently becomes an anti-apartheid activist because of her pronounced sense of justice and has to flee South Africa because of her activities. The conflict between Sara and her adoptive father goes so far that he betrays her to the police since she violated an Apartheid law by sleeping with her black boyfriend. He even testifies against her at a trial.
The patriarch, Dr Zacharias Leroux is the head of the family. What he says is law and the same holds true for the racist politics he follows as Secretary of State. As far as he is concerned, his faith in Christian-National education and the rightness of Apartheid rests on God given irrefutable values. Betraying his daughter follows directly from his principles.
The structure of the novel is also interesting. The narrative perspective is that of the brother, Jo, who finds a family photograph with Sara when he is clearing out his house. This prompts him to tell the story of her life in the course of a day; a life very closely linked to his own, even including a love relationship that could not be fulfilled since she told him too late that she had always loved him.
The novel does not have a happy ending. Three of the main characters die. First, Sara’s boyfriend, the very promising young black writer, Adam Simunya, is shot by the police. Then Sara and her father are killed during the Soweto riots. Only in death, as victims of apartheid related violence, they are once again united when Jo has to identify them in the same morgue room.
It is probably the voice of the author herself who speaks as a psycho-analyst in the novel: “One can pass on false values to people, particularly when they are young.... And one can kill people by classifying them as non-humans. By treating them like vermin.” (p. 184) The novel fulfils an important function, not only to serve as a basis for a school discussion about values but also to make adults reflect about their relations with other people and with their own children. And besides this it also makes for exciting reading.
Rolf Annas, 2011
translated by Catherine du Toit
translated by Catherine du Toit
