Jews in hospitality:

Vryburg Jews were also very prominent in the hospitality industry and, at one point in time, Jewish families all owned the three local hotels. They were all located on the main Market Street and provided warm home for Jewish travelers and a number of retirees who lived in Vryburg. Each property had its own massive inner yard with parking garages. Today, none of these hotels endure. The economics of running hotels in rural South Africa no longer adds up and travelers prefer staying in boutique accommodation options. These days the hotels are shops.

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The Grand Hotel:

An authoritative note on the subject of Vryburg hotels was penned by Graham Brodovcky. The first hotel in Vryburg, the Criterion, was founded by the German Jewish Abt brothers, Daniel and Hermann, in the mid-1880s. After the sale of the Hotel in 1901 the brothers migrated north to Kuruman and Geluk. The Geluk property (later owned by Elias Helfer) also included a country licensed hotel - according to a notice from its sale in 1908 - it was the only country licensed hotel in the entire district. This property was sold as part of Herman's estate in 1908. Herman passed away in Cape Town in June 1905. Daniel Abt passed away and was buried in Kuruamn in 1936. His physician was a Dr. Cohen and attorney and  Herbert Kahn, a cousin, signed his death certificate. 

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That hotel, which became the Grand Hotel, had a long association with Jewish families. After the Abt brothers, the hotel was owned from 1901 to 1906 by Morris Silverman.

 

Morris Silverman in turn sold the Grand Hotel to Jos Smollan and Solomon Smollan, who was married to Leah (nee Eisenberg). They jointly ran it until 1917, after which the Grand was owned by Jos & David Smollan. That same year Solomon Smollan lost his wife. Jos Smollan went to make a considerable fortune after he left Vryburg. Jos was munificent and in his estate he bequeathed money to build a Shul in Vryburg, and other communities.

 

This act of generosity from the bachelor, courted controversy in some quarters of the family. One disgruntled member of the Smollan family submits that Jos “cheated” the family. In her book entitled Snippets of Time: Memoirs of a Maverick, Lola Watter - wrote as follows on this decision. “For all those years, Great Uncle Jos had a hidden agenda. He had not assiduously garnered that considerable wealth in order, at the end, to make a grand charitable gesture which would satisfy the greed that he had nurtured in his family. Instead, the bulk of his money was left to the Vryburg Jewish Congregation, to build a new Synagogue in his name.” It seems that members of the author’s family had been led to expect a large windfall. Lola submits: “Flattering relatives always took him out, fetching and carrying him when he called on them. For he always smilingly remind them that one day they would feature in Big Letters in his Wil!” She later adds, “Great Uncle Jos chose this small town of Vryburg as suitable for his memorial – a big fish in a small pond. But by the time great Uncle Jos died, the joke had turned on him. For there were scarcely enough Jews left in Vryburg to make up the ten necessary for a service.”

 

It was worth noting that the sum of money left to Vryburg, though very generous by the standards of the time, was a small portion of the estate, which some in the family would contest.  

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In 1927 Jack Perel and Jacob Cohen bought the hotel. Jacob Cohen's brothers owned the competing Savoy. From 1929 to 1935 Jack Perel owned the hotel alone. Under the management of the Perel family the Hotel was a home for Jewish travelers. Felicia Perel recounts:

 

Bobba and her husband Jack Perel ran various hotels, and this resulted in Bobba being a very fine and proficient cook. Her reputation was such that any Jewish travelling salesman near Vryburg on a Friday would make a point of checking into their hotel, The Grand, for Shabbat, since Bobba’s Shabbat table was legend. She served traditional Jewish foods, including various herrings, cold meats and food from de heim (the home – which refers to Lithuania, where most of the South African Jews originated).

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In 1941 the Grand was sold to Jack Silbert and then to Maurice Aaron (Morris) Rohloff.

 

The Grand under the Rohloff's:

Morris Rohloff arrived in South Africa from Windau, in the old country and after a career in farming, which took him from Vryersdale (between Kakamas and Keimos) to Upington, he came to Vryburg in 1946. In 1947 he bought the Grand Hotel. The Rohloffs owned the Hotel until 1981.

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Back in the day, the Grand was the local restaurant as well. Maurice Joffe fondly recalls the rolled salted butter on ice. I have fond memories of Sunday lunches (lamb chops!) at Grand Hotel and my Mom telling me that my eyes were bigger than my stomach. This was the time that the Rohloff’s lived at the Grand. I recall the swimming pool and visiting the office behind the reception. Most famous, of course, was the legendary birthday party for Morris Rohloff and his grand-son Justin on 25 December. It was the best X-mas party in town. Frank Rohloff, affectionately known as Boytjie, studied at Hotel School in Switzerland and did a stellar job with the Hotel. I distinctly recall the Hotel been awarded country hotel of the year by the Travelers Association for three years in a row in the mid-1970s. After selling the Hotel, Boytjie started a textile factory – making uniforms and invested in real estate. The shmatter foray was hit by sanctions and not as successful as his investment in South Africa’s 100th Kentucky Fried Chicken. Boytjie became the king of KFC in South Africa and he and his wife Christa (nee Hendricks) relocated to the Strand.

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The Central and the International:

Directly opposite from the Grand was The Central Hotel which was owned by the Blumgart family till 1906. I suspect that it for a while ran under the name of the Vryburg Hotel and was owned after the Blumgart's by Ludwig Salomon. Anney Garnett has found an old advert from 1905 in the Northern News that seems to confirm this. Later, it was owned by William Heppel, then Harry and Annie Allschwang - a Courland family owned the hotel from 1928-1931. They sold to the Wailer family (1931-1937), who sold to Kevi Levin (1937-1944), the Zwarenstein family (1944-1946) and the Jacobsons (1946-1957).

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The International Hotel (formerly the Vryburg and the Savoy Hotel), which was opposite the Stellelander and Land Bank, was owned by a number of Jewish families: Lowitz and Radowsky (1918-1919), Maximillian Isaac Cohen - known as Moses Cohen (1919-1920) and then by his brother Harris Bernard (1921-1924). The next owners were Morris Friedman and David Samuel Cohen (1924) and then David Samuel Cohen, alone till 1925. Next was Jon Mandle Silbert (1925), followed by Herman Greenberg and Abraham Blashker that same year. A year later Greenberg continued alone, until he death in December 1928. The Hotel was then owned by Kevi Levin (1929-1936), John Weinberg, who came from Kuruman (1936-1944) and the Brodovcky-Allen families (1944-1964). Jeannot (John) Weinberg was captured by the British fighting for the Boers in early 1900 and served as a POW. Graham Brodovcky kept an article carried in the Jewish Report in 1999 on John. 

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Liquor:

Each of the hotels had a lucrative licenses to sell alcohol. There are also a number of stand alone bottle stores. As of now, we know that Julius Rosenblatt had one in 1910. .In 1918 Elias Helfer had the Gleluk licence, which Morris Bayer took over a year later. In 1919 David Smollan took over the license held till then by Frank Winter – who passed away. It was a stand-alone bottle store. He held that license till at least 1926. Max Sonnenberg also had a license as late as 1919.