Origins: Jewish Migration to Vryburg
The first Jews arrived in Vryburg from Germany around 1880. In the following decades, increasing numbers of Jews migrated from Eastern Europe—Poland, Latvia (Courland), and Lithuania. Their migration to South Africa marked a new beginning. These migrants fled twenty-five years of conscription, economic hardship, clashes between a reactionary regime and its opponents, and widespread anti-Semitism.

 

Drawn North: Diamonds, Trade, and Opportunity

Once in South Africa, the lure of the diamond rush drew them first to Kimberley and the Barclay West area. From there, they ventured further north. By the early 1900s, Vryburg became a key town in terms of economy, agriculture, and strategy. Jews played a significant role in Vryburg's public and commercial life, often outpacing their proportionate share of the population.

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Livelihoods and Resilience in a Remote Town

The Jews of Vryburg earned their living as farmers, peddlers (smouse), shopkeepers, hoteliers, and, later, as professionals. Their personal stories are deeply inspiring. Most arrived with limited resources and spoke neither English nor Afrikaans. Many came alone, leaving families behind, and often faced significant hardship.

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Yet they endured. They were gritty, resilient and persisted.  They gradually established themselves economically and socially in a remote and challenging environment. Some were remarkably successful. 

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Community, Identity, and Assimilation

Above all, the Jewish residents of Vryburg fiercely maintained their sense of community and Jewish identity. At the same time, assimilation was a real and complex process. In distant areas such as Vryburg and its surrounding farms, Jewish partners were often hard to find. Some Jews married outside the community, including non‑white partners.

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Many Jews who married beyond communal boundaries nevertheless sustained meaningful connections to their Jewish identity, families, and community. Assimilation, in this context, was never a simple binary of belonging or loss—it existed along a spectrum.

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Privilege and Precariousness in White South Africa

Identity in South Africa was complicated and deeply sensitive. Jews were classified as part of the dominant white minority and, as such, benefitted from substantial privilege. We had far better access to healthcare and education than non‑white South Africans. We enjoyed unrestricted access to the town’s two tennis clubs, the hockey club, rugby clubs, the bowling club, and the golf course—amenities entirely closed to Black South Africans, so‑called Coloureds, and Indians.

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Passing through Huhudi, the stark contrast between Jewish and white homes and those of Black residents was unmistakable. After 1950, Jews were also able to trade on Market Street following the forced displacement of the Indian community.

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Yet this privilege coexisted with vulnerability.

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Outsiders Among Whites: Everyday Anti‑Semitism

Despite their relative social position, Jews were never entirely accepted by many whites. Many recall snide remarks about Jews, while others bore witness to more overt acts of anti‑Semitism.

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Scholar Marcia Leveson (p. 3) captures the predicament of Jews in South Africa with particular clarity:

“Coming as immigrants to South Africa, worshipping differently, sometimes dressed in the clothing of the Eastern European shtetl (village) of their origin, speaking a foreign language or with a foreign accent, the Jews were obvious candidates—second only to the blacks—for the role of outsider, the other, in the cultural imagination of white South Africa.”

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Collective Resistance and Growing Confidence

The Jewish community in Vryburg was not intimidated. An article uncovered by Anney Garnett from the Northern News, dated November 20, 1915, reveals that George Green, the manager of a C. Stark and Company branch at Curnow Siding, issued a public apology to the local Jewish community for an offensive advertisement. This apology suggests that the Jewish community protested collectively and may have threatened a boycott. Their readiness to use economic leverage demonstrates both their organizational strength and a growing sense of confidence, which they gained through hard-won economic stability.

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In 1916, Woolf Friedman responded to a letter written by a person identifying as “British Born,” who criticized Russian Jews for supposedly not participating in the war effort. At the core of this accusation was a familiar falsehood: that of Jewish dual loyalties.

 

During the Great Depression, conditions became more unstable. Jews encountered growing hostility from the Greyshirts and heightened anti-Jewish agitation within the Nationalist Party.

 

Economic Crisis and Political Hostility: The Immigration Quota Act and Lost Futures

Reverend Bernard Wulf, interviewed by Eve Horwitz (a former Vryburger), for the Kaplan Centre, reflected on the rise of anti‑Semitism in the late 1920s. His testimony contextualizes the Immigration Quota Restriction Act of May 1930, promoted by Interior Minister D. F. Malan. Though based in Upington, his observations illuminate conditions in towns such as Vryburg. He describes how widespread poverty and despair made Jews a convenient target.

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BW: Their argument was Eastern European Jews are tainted with Communism, they said you come from Russia, everything is Russia, you come from a little shtetel from what's name then you are a Russian and maybe there was that anti-Semitic feeling against the Jews, and afterwards when Malan came to power and he was minister, he brought in the Quota Act, he said God forbid not against the Jews, it was against the Eastern Europe which was communistically ... and he excluded the Jew~ but he had to take in a lot of German Jews afterwards because the Act was not.

EH: Do you think politicians would gain favour by being anti Jewish, would they gain favour by being anti Jewish?

BW: Don't forget it was a time of Depression, a very big proportion of the Afrikaner were the poor whites, life is difficult then you look for scapegoats and the Jew is a scapegoat, in yiddish there is a saying "Ven orem keit cumt arayn in hoyse, der sholem beis geyt aroys" (When poverty come into a house, peace goes out) that's the way we must look at it ..

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This law effectively halted Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe to South Africa, including to towns such as Vryburg. One cannot help but wonder how many lives might have been spared from the Holocaust had that door remained open.

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War Years and Pro‑Nazi Activity in Vryburg

Following the Great Trek Centennial celebrations in 1938 and the outbreak of World War II the following year, local Jews faced intensified hostility, particularly from the Ossewabrandwag. Anti‑Semitism escalated as the Union of South Africa aligned with the Allies, against Nazi Germany.

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In his 2021 book Hitler's South African Spies, historian Evert Kleynhans reveals that Vryburg served as a center of pro‑Nazi activity. The Ossewabrandwag leader Hans van Rensburg collaborated with German operatives, including Abwehr recruit Hans Rooseboom. After Rooseboom’s fall from favor, another German agent, Lothar Sittig—code‑named ““Felix,”—operated from Vryburg, establishing direct two‑way radio communication between South Africa and Germany.

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In later decades, the Afrikaner Weerstands Beweeging (AWB) became prominent in Vryburg—another unsettling reminder for the town’s few remaining Jews. Gradually, the Jewish community dwindled as families relocated to larger cities, often following their children.

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Vryburg in the Broader Jewish Story

While the story of Vryburg’s Jews is deeply personal to those with ties to the town, it mirrors the histories of many rural Jewish communities in South Africa and small towns across the world. It forms part of the broader Jewish experience: migration from Eastern Europe in search of safety, opportunity, and dignity. 

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