The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/Czechoslovaks in South Africa

by Vladislav Bouček

Czechoslovaks in South Africa

By Vladislav Bouček.

Czechs began to come into what is now the Union of South Africa with the first Dutch immigrants in the middle of the 17th century. Many exiled Czech Protestants were settled in Holland, and some of them joined the first group that went to South Africa under Van Riebeck. Among the first preachers of the Dutch Reformed Church is mentioned in 1655 the Reverend Leonard Bonits of Bory—a name purely Bohemian. Among others with Latinized names were probably several Czechs who followed the prevailing fashion of latinizing their surnames. It was inevitable that these early immigrants lost their original speech in the second or third generation, and sooner or later lost all consciousness of their Bohemian origin. But there was an exception, to be mentioned later.

In the second half of the nineteenth century two well known Czechs strayed to South Africa, Dr. Holub and William Paclt of Turnov. Dr. Holub returned home and died there, but Paclt rests after a stirring and restless life on the banks of the Orange River.

Toward the end of the last century individual Czech emigrants landed frequently in South Africa and settled in various places. There were several of them in Capetown and more in Johannesburg. In the Boer war there was a number of Czech volunteers on both sides, according to where they happened to have settled. When the war was over and the Johannesburg gold mines entered upon a period of prosperity, more Czech individuals and families came to Johannesburg, among them a Czech from the United States, so that one could speak of a Bohemian settlement in this city.

Practically all of them were workingmen without any means, and their chief aim was to secure a living; and that takes several years in case of immigrants without knowledge of the language of the country. There was thus no real social life in this small settlement, and relations were limited to occasional calls or assistance in emergencies.

The leader of the Bohemian settlement—one might call him the Czechoslovak consul ad honorem—was a genuine Africander of Czech descent, Mr. P. R. C. Dornik-Plotner, who in 1908 was assigned to police service in Kimberley and since then was the official host at Kimberley to all visiting and resident Czechs. His case is really quite unusual.

Dornik-Plotner is descended from an old Bohemian family which after the battle of White Mountain had to flee from the country before the vengeance of the Hapsburgs. One of his female ancestors was Eliška of Wartenburg who was related to the Lords of Rosenberg, so that the blood of some of the greatest families in Bohemian history circulates in Dornik-Plotner’s veins. His ancestors fled from Bohemia to Holland and from there emigrated to the Cape; but the remarkable thing is that for the space of three centuries Bohemian speech maintained itself in this family amid strange surroundings and strange language of neighbors. The present representative of the family was born on a small farm in the western part of Cape Colony; he learned English and Dutch in school, Bohemian at home. His parents instilled into him a love for the Czech nation, and he himself made a trip to the distant country in 1908; he read Bohemian newspapers and books and maintained a correspondence with the old country.

In 1914 the world war found us unprepared and unorganized. We were registered as alien enemies, and after the sinking of the Lusitania those who were not naturalized were interned. Among governmental officials in the whole Union of South Africa there was not a single one who knew anything about the Czechs, and we were classified as Germans or Austrians. Mr. Dornik-Plotner became our champion, by writing about us to the newspapers and sending letters to the authorities, particularly General Botha. He sent articles to the Dutch papers in Capetown and to English papers in Johannesburg, telling about the sentiments of the Czechs and their age-long fight with the Germans. In that short period of time between the Austrian declaration of war on Serbia and England’s entry into the war, the Austrian consul at Johannesburg began to ship home Austrian reservists, but Dornik-Plotner stopped that by explaining in the public press to the Jugoslavs who constituted the consul’s principal recruiting field, what the war was about and that they should rather join the British or Serbian army.

It was a long time, before we heard anything about the revolutionary work undertaken by Czech leaders against Austria. Our first work was to boost the relief funds, and we collected particularly for Serbian funds, having official permission to do that. We kept that up far into the second year of the war, because we did not know of any more definite goal. In Johannesburg our women, dressed in Czech national costumes, were the principal workers and collected large sums.

But after a while we read in Bohemian-American newspapers that the Bohemian National Alliance was established there for the purpose of campaigning for Czechoslovak independence, and that money was being collected and sent to leaders in Europe. Mr. Dornik-Plotner immediately sent letters to all our people in South Africa calling on them to give liberally to the Alliance, and we sent to Chicago several large sums of money.

After the destruction of Lusitania the government started to intern all enemy aliens, and all our people who were not naturalized were classed as such. That gave us fresh work, namely to liberate the interned Czechs. The main work was again done by Dornik-Plotner who addressed many letters to General Botha, explaining the real position of the Czechs in the war and their relations to the Germans. Another worker in this cause was an American Bohemian, Mr. Janda, who enlisted the sympathies of the American consul and brought to our side many members of parliament. As a result we released a majority of our countrymen out of internment camps in the course of about three months.

In 1916 Mr. Dornik-Plotner came to Johannesburg to call a meeting of all African Czechs for the purpose of establishing a branch of the Bohemian National Alliance in South Africa. This was done; Mr. Janda was made president and Dornik-Plotner secretary. The society commenced its activities by making a house-to-house collection; we sent money to America, to Professor Masaryk to London and later to the Czechoslovak “Samostatnost” in Paris. After that we sent several sums to the Czechoslovak Press Bureau in London, for we felt the need of a campaign of information through the newspapers. Our own neighbors knew nothing of the Bohemians. Our organization co-operated closely with the Jugoslav “Slovanska Sloga”; there were at least twenty times as many Jugoslavs as Czechs in Johannesburg.

I have mentioned that a majority of the Czechs were soon released from the internment camps. But many were kept there, and most of the Jugoslavs never got out. All the appeals of our leaders were in vain; they received the stereotyped answer that the matter “was having attention” or would be decided “in due course”.

It was evident that some hidden hand was working against us. Mr. Janda decided to take a trip to Pretoria to discover the reason, and he found out that the official to whom our petitions were referred was a German by birth and presumably by sympathies. He hated all Slavs and tried to do us as much harm as possible. There was nothing surprising in the fact that a German was holding an important governmental post. During the Boer war a large number of Germans served on the Boer side; after peace was established, they made an oath of allegiance to King Edward and became British subjects. When a few years later the Boers obtained control of the government, many of these Germans got into the governmental service, some into very important posts.

Mr. Janda ascertained that the censor passing on Bohemian letters was German by birth and that the detective whose duty it was to look after Austrian aliens was also a German. When petitions came to the authorities asking for the release of Czechs and other Slavs, these South African government officials told the ministers that to release Austrian “enemies” would cause bad blood among Boers, as long as Boer rebels of 1915 were detained. They also tried to get the matter postponed indefinitely by recommending that it be referred to the British authorities in London. They succeeded in inducing the government to take no action.

We decided on new tactics. Mr. Janda called on Mr. Duncan, an opposition member of the Legislative Assembly, and made him familiar with the entire situation, furnishing documents and evidence of our charges. When the session of parliament was opened at Capetown, Mr. Duncan addressed an interpellation to the minister of interior on the subject of Czech prisoners of war. The minister answered by giving the expected excuses furnished him by his German subordinates. That gave an opening to Mr. Duncan: “Why, these interned Boers are rebels and allies of the Germans; how can you class them with the Czechs who are our faithful friends and enemies of the Central Powers?” The minister was compelled to release all our countrymen at once and to place Czechs on the same plane as other British allies. That was at the end of 1917.

In 1918 a number of our men who had been formerly in camps volunteered for service in the British army; the rest of us were busy saving and collecting money for Czechoslovak legionaries and the independence campaign; our contributions were sent to London and Paris.

When the fighting ceased and the Czechoslovak Republic came formally into existence, we received written applications for certificates of Czechoslovak citizenship from Germans born in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, and from Jews born in these lands and in Slovakia. In the absence of any authorized representative of the Czechoslovak Republic Mr. Dornik-Plotner verified their place of birth, took from them an oath of allegiance to the Czechoslovak Republic and secured their release from internment camps. During the present year our collections were sent to the Czech Heart and to the Anglo-Czech Relief Fund.

The total number of Czechs and their children in the Union of South Africa is only about 130; in addition there is about 100 Germans and Jews who owe allegiance to the Czechoslovak Republic. We want a Czechoslovak consular representative in South Africa to protect the interests of his countrymen and to establish direct commercial relations between the two countries. We all hope that our leader during the war, Mr. Dornik-Plotner, will be the first Czechoslovak Consul for South Africa.

Courtesy of the Czechoslovak Information Bureau.

Masaryk Reviews Legionaries before Hus Monument on the occasion of ‘Old Guard’ Anniversary.