The Texas of South Africa

Needless to say, the district had its fair share of Jewish farmers. It was, after all, the Texas of South Africa. Vryburg was famous for its Friday auctions (vendiesie), where over a thousand head of cattle could be sold in a single day. These auctions marked the high point of the week, following daily sales in distant places such as Reivilo (Olivier spelt backwards), Aansluit, Oliefantshoek, Tosca, Delerayville, Schweizer-Reneke, Ganyesa, Coetzersdam, Kuruman (held every Thursday), among many others.

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Each auction followed a familiar rhythm. Proceedings began with small livestock — pigs, sheep, and goats — penned off to one side. Then came the main event: the cattle. The auctioneers, charismatic and commanding, were mesmerizing to watch and even more so to hear.

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Legends of the Ring There were legendary figures. André Kock of Karoo Osche and Oom Hendrik van Niekerk of the Slabbert Verster & Malherbe (SVM) agency stood out in particular. Van Niekerk was deliberate, tall, and imposing; his trademark Stetson only amplified his presence. André Kock, by contrast, was essentially the Sarel van der Merwe of Vryburg. Like Van der Merwe, André was a passionate off-road rally driver, and his auctioneering style was quick, energetic, and exhilarating. Eventually, the two agencies merged into Karoo. Each week, a different agency conducted the auction, and there was a definite sense of party loyalty. We Sussmans, for example, were less inclined to attend sales run during the week by Noordkaap Afslaers—but on Fridays, everyone showed up.

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How Deals Were Done

Bidding was often done with just a wink or a tiny twitch of a finger. False bids were accepted, and when asking and bidding prices didn’t match, psychology—and sometimes arm-twisting—came into play. Most of the time, a deal was finalized. Auctioneers took a standard 3% commission.

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There were also the stubborn, proud farmers who refused to give in and left empty-handed. Sold livestock was marked with silver paint and a number; major buyers had their own. My father, Isaac, used number 3. Sometimes, farmers and buyers made side deals and were sent to a pickup truck for the checkbook—no commission for the livestock agent.

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A Social Institution

Auctions were big social events. Farmers and their families came into town for the day. Politics, weather, and sports were discussed, and plenty of gossip was traded. Shopping followed.

Ruth (Jocum) Tyfield recalls:"Being a farmer’s daughter I spent many hours with my father at the Vryburg cattle auction and then doing the weekly shopping in town before the trek to the farm."

 

Come evening, the farmers went to the kroeg (bar). Meish Arenson remembers wives and children sitting in cars outside the International Hotel for hours while husbands drank until they were sufficiently drunk to call it a night.

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We children had our own pleasures. We loved the jaffles, pannekoeks (pancakes), and other boerekos (farm food) sold in the cafeteria, happily indulging—on the livestock agents’ account. Catering was often provided by local churches as a fundraiser. Maurice Joffe recalls a time when his mother, Leila, coordinated the Jewish catering effort. David Rauff remembers his mother, Esme, waking before dawn to prepare moer koffie (strong coffee) in the shul’s large urns when the Vryburg Jewish Ladies Society catered at the stock fair.

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Not least among our childish diversions was collecting stompies (cigarette butts) tossed down from the stands. We’d take secret puffs—Rothmans, Winston, Lucky Strike, Benson & Hedges (for wussies), and Gunston Toasted (for a real farmer). Race, of course, was strictly segregated. Black attendees were pushed to a quarter of the seats, and black cattle fetched lower prices—an honest reflection of the economics of “separate development.”

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Jews in the Meat Industry

Many Jews were deeply involved in the beef industry: as meat traders (like Gerry Gluckman), wholesale suppliers (such as the Schneiderman family of Federated Meats), spice traders (Freddy Hirsch), and dealers in hides and bones. As previously mentioned, Woolf Friedman, Abe Lax, Chanan Poliak, and Morris Wald all traded in hides and skins. The Double Crown Yeast factory used cattle fat to produce soap, while Bechuanaland Malt and Milling made cattle feed. Vryburg also had its share of Jewish butchers.

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The Smouse: Speculators and Middlemen

Then there were the Jewish speculators, or smouse—a vital and potentially lucrative link between farmers and butchers. It wasn't quite the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, but it was exhilarating. Successful speculators had to make two critical judgments. First, they needed to predict price trends at major abattoirs, taking into account seasonal demand and local supply changes. Prices at large abattoirs in Johannesburg (City Deep), Durban, Cape Town, and Kimberley were followed obsessively. My father made a daily trip into town to sit with Oom Adam Willemse at SVM, where prices were carefully recorded by grade and by abattoir. Second—and more subtly—speculators had to outguess farmers on weight, grade, and final value. A skilled smous could estimate the weight of herd of cattle as they circled the ring. Like his father, Benno, my father Isaac Sussman was a smous par excellence. Masterful at estimating weights and grades, he knew exactly how far to push his bid. He either fattened bought cattle on our farms, sold them to Jewish buyers in Johannesburg, or sent them directly to abattoirs—a process that required hard-won permits. Hustling for permits was simply part of the business.

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To be effective, a smous needed land to fatten cattle and exceptional soft skills: building a network of farmers who preferred dealing with him, both for permits and off-market transactions. Vryburg was the ideal base for such operations.

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Interestingly, my father’s maternal family, the Engelbergs, were butchers in Johannesburg and cattle and meat traders in Tukums and Riga. Later, Isaac became a buyer for Beefmaster. His main rival was Hans Koster of Khanhym Estates, owned by the Hyman and Khan families. Koster marked his purchases "HK." Before striking out on his own, Hans had worked for Bokkie Niselow.

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Other Jewish Speculators

Vryburg had many other Jewish investors. Woolf Friedman was listed as a cattle speculator on his 1927 wedding certificate and as a vee boer (cattle farmer) on his death certificate. His presumed brother, Sam Friedman, and cousin Louis Sher farmed at Bankspoort on the Stella Road and were also involved in livestock dealings.

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Solomon Muskat, father of Max Muskat, was a speculator and cattle farmer from Lichtenburg. Another, Nachman David Schapiro—known as Nathan—apparently farmed in the Molopo district. He lived alone on a farm and later in a local hotel, while his family remained in the Cape. Nathan died on 6 July 1953, aged 61, just a month after his daughter’s wedding. His estate records identify him as a director of National Meat Supplies (Pty) Ltd. Born in Rieteva, Lithuania, he was the son of Israel Ber Shapiro and Mary Averbuck. The Schapiro family started out from Piquetberg.

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Another speculator, Nathan Kopelowitz of Frankfort—whose family came from Pokroi, Lithuania—passed away on an auction day in November 1962. Max Lowitz was also a cattle speculator and probably kept ties to Vryburg even after selling his farms. Morris Greenberg is listed on his death certificate as a Vryburg-based storekeeper and speculator. Growing up, I remember the major Jewish buyers—most notably Bokkie Niselow—coming from Johannesburg. André Kock fondly recalls names such as Mike Gladstone, Harry Nochomovitz, Panty Pantanovitz, and Michael Kropman, the latter three from Klerksdorp.​​