South African activist Denis Goldberg, one of Nelson Mandela’s closest colleagues in the struggle against apartheid, has died aged 87, his foundation announces.
Tributes have poured in from all sectors of society, many acknowledging Goldberg’s humanity and fight for justice.
This file picture taken on January 27, 2016 shows South African social campaigner Denis Goldberg posing with an award of the Freedom of the City of London during a ceremony at the Guildhall in London. (BEN STANSALL / AFP)
Goldberg was among the African National Congress leaders and others sentenced to jail for sabotage along with Mandela in what became known as the Rivonia treason trial.
He was the only white man among many 150 people arrested in a police raid on their hideout in Rivonia, north of Johannesburg, in 1963.
“Somehow I understood that what was happening in South Africa with its racism was like the racism in Nazi Germany that we were supposed to be fighting against,” Goldberg, who was Jewish, said last year. “You have to be involved one way or another. That’s what I grew up with.”
— AFP
Discover Israel's most beloved poet
She died more than four decades ago, but Leah Goldberg remains a magnetic and enigmatic figure: Israel’s most beloved poet, a powerful woman who lived with her mother and never married, who reinvented herself from the ashes of World War I through her magical writing.
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