Tag Archives: museum

Huberta the hippo

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We visited South Africa in 2003. Wherever we parked, young men offered to ‘look after’ our hired car for a small fee. It was NOT a good idea to turn down their offers!

My great-grandfather, Franz Ginsberg, began industrial enterprises in King Williams Town in the late 19th century.

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Once part of my great-grandfather’s factory in King Williams Town

We drove the short distance to the Amathole Museum (formerly called the ‘Kaffrarian’) in King Williams Town. Our car-minder was David, a friendly young man, who appeared to live in a derelict car parked near the museum…

We returned to the museum on the next day. We received a friendly greeting from David, our car minder from the day before.  He offered to wash our car whilst we were away. As it needed this, we agreed. We met the curator again. She had prepared a vast number of photocopies for me. I returned the photograph album, we chatted briefly, and bid farewell.

We had a quick look around the large museum. One exhibit in the Industry Section was a poster exhorting people not to buy imported matches but instead to buy locally made matches, that is matches made by Ginsberg & Co (my great-grandfather’s company). Near this is a picture of another large enterprise, King Tanning.

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My great-grandfather’s home in King williams Town

The museum has an enormous collection of stuffed animals.  The curator said that this collection was better than the Kruger National Park, and that the animals were easier to see, as they don’t move around! The best known of these animals is Huberta, the Hippo. This creature, in the 1920s, wandered many 100’s of miles south from its tropical habitat in the north of the country and passed through King Williams Town. Near Port Elizabeth, an ignorant farmer ended her life by shooting. The body of Huberta was sent to London for taxidermy before returning to South Africa to its present home.

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David, the car-minder, and his friends

After about an hour we left the museum. David and some of his friends had just started to clean our car. We watched them perform this procedure painfully slowly. Eventually, it was sort of done. To some extent it was a bit cleaner that before! We said good-bye and David asked to visit him again. He asked us to bring him a shirt and a pair of shoes on our next visit to King Williams Town.

She found a strange object…

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Barkly East (Barkly Oos in Afrikaans), South Africa 2003:

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The museum curator met us. She gave me a list of the eleven Jews who had been buried in Barkly East’s cemetery. She told us that although Edelsteins was a smaller store, that it acted as a rival to Seligmann’s store. Mrs. Van Wyk related that the last Jewish family to live in Barkly East was the Bortz family. Lazer Bortz had come out of Russia to South Africa with his sister (? Or wife) and both had been employees of Seligmann’s before Lazer set up his own business, as a fuel (i.e. oil and coal) supplier. The business still exists, with new owners, under its original name of “L. Bortz” but the family has long left the town. They went to Bloemfontein. Lazer had a son. The curator used to teach him when he still lived in the town. She then asked for our assistance.

Long after the Bortz family had left Barkly East she noticed something attached their house – she prized it off the wall in order to keep it safe from vandals. She did not know what it was.

It was a mezuzah*, complete with its prayer scroll.

[ * These are always mounted on the right hand side of entrance doors in traditional Jewish homes]