Harry Schwarz

Harry Heinz Schwarz was a South African lawyer, statesman and longtime political opposition leader against apartheid in South Africa, who eventually served as the South African ambassador to the United States during the countrys transition to majority rule.

Harry Schwarz was born Heinz Schwarz to Fritz and Alma Schwarz in Cologne, Germany. His family belonged to the Glockengasse Synagogue. He arrived in South Africa as a Jewish refugee from Germany in 1934 with his mother and younger brother Kurt. His father Fritz, a Social Democratic Party activist, left for South Africa the night the Nazis came to power. They boarded the SS Giulio Cesare in Genoa, Italy which took them to South Africa. When they arrived in Cape Town they stayed in one room in a house in Kloof Street. Schwarz described how he was lucky as eventually he was able to sleep in a bathroom in a rusty bath. He spoke no Afrikaans or English at first and had strong memories of being taunted on the schoolyard for being different. Schwarz stated in an interview in 1991 that I know what the word discrimination means, not because Ive read it in a book, but because Ive been the subject of it. And I know what it means to be hungry. The discrimination and financial difficulties of his

Source: Wikipedia