25 May 2011

Anti-Apartheid Activist Who Shielded Mandela Dies

Wednesday, 25 May 2011

An old friend of Nelson Mandela who once helped hide the anti-apartheid leader from the South African white minority government has died.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation says Arthur Goldreich died in Israel on Tuesday. He was 82.

In the early 1960s, Mr. Mandela posed as a worker for Goldreich at the white activist's farm near Johannesburg.

The Liliesleaf Farm served as a base for the anti-apartheid movement. While there, Mr. Mandela took the name David Motsamayi and pretended to be a black servant who often wore simple blue overalls.

In 1963, police raided the farm and arrested Goldreich and other anti-apartheid leaders. Goldreich later escaped from police and eventually moved to Israel.

Goldreich returned to South Africa for a reunion at Liliesleaf Farm after Mr. Mandela became South Africa's first democratically-elected president in 1994.

Besides being an activist, Goldreich was also an artist. He designed the set for “King Kong,” a popular musical in South Africa about the life of a real-life black boxer.

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