Sam and Eve (nee Kolski) and their two sons Allen (born 1952) and Martin (born 1954), lived in Vryburg for about six years (1951-1957). After leaving Vryburg the couple had a daughter Liora. Sam managed Die Boerhelmekaar on behalf of the Joffe family. Sam and Eve both served on the board of the local Shul Committee in 1955. Eve was a Polish Holocaust survivor and Sam met and married her in Israel. The couple came to South Africa to visit Sam's ailing father, Morris, with Eve expecting their eldest and ended up in South Africa for good. After the loss of his father Sam briefly worked in the family store in Dry Harts and then moved to Vryburg. After Vryburg, the family moved to the Cape. Eve was responsible for many of the Kaplan Center oral history interviews with country Jews - including the one with Joe Joffe. The Horwitz family were deeply rooted in the Vryburg district and linked to the Bayer clan of Taung. Sam's father Morris was married to Shaila Annie - the daughter of Samuel John Bayer and Nechama Bayer (nee Tobias).

 

Curiously, Nechama appointed her brother-in-law Isaac Traub of Beaufort West and his son Elias (living in Vryburg at the time of signing) as executors of her estate. Shaila had had two siblings, Rose Sarah Saacks and Philip Bayer. Shaila’s mother was born in Solovon and joined her husband in South Africa in 1882. Samuel Bayer (from Grinschik in Lithuania) had come to South Africa in 1880.

 

Morris Horwitz was the son of Hermann Horwitz from Plunjan. His parents were Julius and Hana. Herman passed away in Paarl in 1933, aged 80. He was a speculator and was married twice. First, to Fagie (nee Klasnik) who died in 1902 and then to Etje Chane (nee Bonimmowitz). Herman had four children – all from his first marriage – Annie Ethel (married a Buch), Simon (a farmer), Isaac and Morris.

 

In an interview granted to her daughter-in-law, Eve Horwitz, her father chose South Africa as he “heard there was more scope to make a living in South Africa.” Her parents began in Fordsburg, Johannesburg as shopkeepers. Morris secured capital to attain the shop from “landsleit.” They remained in Joburg until the outbreak of the Second Boer War. In order to avoid being conscripted in the Army of the Boer Republic, the family fled to the Cape – to  Beaufort West. In her interview Shaila notes that Beaufort West was chosen as it had a small Jewish community – including refugees from the Boer War and a shochet. As  was the case with Vryburg, the local Masonic Hall was used for religious services. After Beaufort West, the family moved to Taung- living on a farm called Rushfarm. The Bayer family were well represented in Taung. According to Shaila, “we had a very nice business, it was native trade, still we were quite happy and contented, six cousins of the Bayers on one side.”

 

Shaila married her husband Morris in Taung at the age of 21 or 22. Morris Horwitz was at the time from Laingsburg, working as a produce buyer – smous – with his brother. Shaila recalls: “We married in the garden of a private home, my uncles and my aunts and we had the rabbi from Kimberley to officiate.” After her marriage, she and her husband moved to “a small place called Merryvale” – where her husband was in business with his brother. Next they moved to Victoria West, thereafter they lived in Merriman (in the Karoo, south of Britstown), Hutchison (near Victoria West) and then to Dry Harts. Their two sons, Sam and Harold were born in Victoria West in 1922 and 1924. After a few years in Dry Harts they sold their farm and store to the government they moved to Perduberg, running a shop and later they bought farms. After a decade in Perduberg they moved to Kimberley. After her husband died in Kimberley in 1952, Shaila joined Sam and Eve in Vryburg.

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