This book is a personal journey into the family archives of

photographer Paul Weinberg. Childhood sorties into an old black

trunk uncovered family postcards, stamps, letters and photographs

that excited his imagination about what lay beyond his South

African world. These memorabilia connected Weinberg to both his

grandparents’ roots in eastern Europe and his own roots in South

Africa, and prompted an exploration of his family’s footprints

through far-flung small towns in the interior of this country. In

the form of postcards to his great-grandfather Edward, it is both

a visual narrative of this journey and a multi-layered travel book,

which pieces together the jigsaw of his family’s journeys and asks

important questions about who writes history and who is left out.

Paul Weinberg packs irony, empathy and an inquisitive

l ens on h i s SA r oo t s t r e k . He ’ s a mensch . JONATHAN SHAPIRO

9 781431 405541

ISBN 978-1-4314-0554-1www.jacana.co.za

D E A R E D W A R D

P A U L W E I N B E R G

f a m i l y f o o t p r i n t s

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f a m i l y f o o t p r i n t s

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The inspiration for this book

emerged from my sorties

into an old black trunk

that we had at home. I vividly remember, as a

child, searching for family heirlooms and other

secrets there. My searches were mostly for the

elusive Penny Black and other valuable stamps to

complement my growing collection.

The letters, photographs and postcards

that I found in the trunk connected me

to a world that reached far beyond

the borders of South Africa and the

African continent. Collected there,

emanating from the objects I shuffled

in my hands, were a myriad criss-

crossing paths and relationships.

These were the things that linked my

grandparents to their roots, and they

would later spark off new discoveries

as I journeyed to find my own roots.

The trunk was probably all my great-

grandparents had when they landed on the

shores of South Africa. It was a symbol of an immigrant

culture that had come to create new beginnings here,

and it became the metaphoric well I would return to

time and again as I tried to understand the parallel

concepts of roots and routes.

I am very grateful to my grandfather Bernard, who

was something of an amateur archivist. He kept

everything from deposit slips to paper clippings.

He, like his other brothers, was interested in stamp

collecting, the hobby I continued into my early

teens. But most valuable of all, he kept an album

of postcards, as did my grandmother Frida. The

postcards were the main way my family kept in

touch as they made South Africa their home.

I remember looking at the sepia picture

postcards with a child’s fascination.

Turning them over I would see

words – in an old writing style, and

sometimes in a language I couldn’t

understand. On the top right-hand

corner there was often a stamp from

the Orange Free State Republic. The

postcards were full of references to

places, held values, spilled over with

humour at times. They represented

communications between four countries

– Latvia, Russia, Germany and Belgium – as

well as ‘our country of adoption’ – South Africa.

They held the family’s connection to one another,

kept it strong as the family changed and grew.

My great-aunt Bertha, the only daughter in a family

of six sons, wrote a family memoir that opens a

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window to a world that was tinder for a child’s

fantastical imagination. She said:

It is not that my family ever attained great

distinction in any field, or accomplished

anything outstanding, but I do think as a

family we were unique, having lived in four

different countries, spoken seven languages

between us, taken part in four wars, and

thus contributing in some small way

to the history of this country

of our adoption.

I am the direct descendant of Edward

and Fanny Weinberg, originally

from Riga, Latvia, who settled in

the Orange Free State Republic

in 1893. I am a fourth-generation

South African, whose family has

lived on the African continent for

more than a hundred years. On my

mother’s side my lineage can be traced

to her father Harry Karpolowski, who

arrived with his three brothers from Belarus

to settle in Johannesburg in 1915.

As a documentarian in the 21st century, I am only

too aware that ‘history’ is the product of various

and multiple narratives. Living in this country has

informed me that ‘writing’ or ‘making’ history is

never a linear process, nor necessarily an equitable

exercise. More pertinently, it is mostly written

from a perspective of the victors – and next to the

discourses of power, economic and politics, family

history seems only a muted voice in a massive choir.

But I am particularly interested in the concept of

the ‘I’ in history and one’s own story in it. Who

is its authentic voice? This is the question that

has troubled and fascinated me most of

my life. I am intrigued by how even a

personal history is so layered with

meanings and interpretations.

This book contains a journal of

my attempt to trace the roots my

family laid down in the country

of ‘their adoption’ – including my

own visual record, modern day

‘postcards’ if you like. My family

found a survival niche in the hotel

business, and different branches of

the family lived and travelled throughout

the South African interior. My picture postcards

take you to the towns my family settled in, along

the route that members of my family followed to

establish themselves here.

Paul Weinberg

‘… the task is not only to remember but to remember strenuously – to explore, decode, and deepen the terrain of memory. Moreover what is at stake is not only the past but the present.’ EVA HOFFMAN, SHTETL

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Lef t Weinberg fami ly , Moscow. c i rca. 1890

Above Weinberg fami ly reunion, Drakensberg , KwaZulu-Natal , South Afr ica. 2000

Muizenberg , December 2008

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Dear Edward

I have been meaning to write to you for quite

some time now. You and Fanny came to South

Africa over a hundred years ago, so there’s a

lot to catch up on. I’ve been trying to put some

pieces together – like where we come from,

the reasons for your coming here, the early

days and so on. The memoirs written by your

daughter Bertha (my great-aunt) have helped

me a lot, and the pictures, letters and family

albums have all been great. But it was mainly

the postcards you all sent each other that

captured my imagination.

I’m about to start a journey that will take me

to all the towns you lived in, here in South

Africa. You might ask why I am pursuing this

exercise? Some people would certainly see my

writing to you about it as a meaningless task …

a conversation with the dead! Well, I don’t see

it that way. A lot of Africa has rubbed off on

me. The tradition of talking to your ancestors

is strong here in ‘our country of adoption’,

and it is one I was happy to absorb.

That’s how my thinking started, but the more

I thought about it, the more I realised that

knowing where you come from is a cross-cultural

thing, a human need. One’s family and one’s

ancestors are really important in how you turn

out in life. For better or for worse, they are the

cards that are dealt to you at birth ... though of

course, it’s up to you how you play them.

Also, I am very grateful for what you did. You

showed initiative and vision in leaving a country

that was oppressing you. Because of that

courageous decision, you missed the truly ugly,

tragic affair that some people call the Second

Great War. I am enormously grateful to you all

for giving your children ... and their offspring ...

a chance.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to send you the

occasional postcard from my journey ... keep you

posted, if you like, up to date and connected. I

think a lot has changed!

Here is a postcard from Muizenberg, which you

once visited, where I now live with my wife,

Heleen, and son Joe.

Fondly, Paul

‘A land where milk and honey flowed, and even the pigeons flew about ready roasted with a fork and knife in their backs, just waiting to be eaten.’

GREAT-AUNT BERTHA’S MEMOIRS

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PHIL IPPOLIS

My family first arrived in the ‘sleepy

hollow’ – as my great-aunt Bertha

described it – in 1893. Philippolis was

the first town in the Orange Free State, founded

in 1826 by Reverend John Philip of the London

Missionary Society (LMS), for Bushmen and the

Griqua communities. Over a hundred years later

it is still rather sleepy – one of those small towns

struggling to find its way in the new South Africa.

The Dutch Reformed Church still looms large at

the end of the Voortrekker Road. Its gothic steeple

gazes on the town. Just a stone’s throw away

from the church are the abandoned canons that

belonged to Adam Kok III, given to him by the LMS,

and now positioned on a small hill aiming at an

imaginary enemy somewhere in the sky.

Driving slowly through the main street, I register,

fleetingly, the beautiful old Karoo houses that

speak to this past. An elderly white woman is

sitting drinking her coffee on her stoep, watching

the traffic go by; a Pakastani tearoom owner is

warming himself in the early morning sun, puffing

on his cigarette as he waits for his customers;

the sign at the Jan van Riebeeck Park, with its

slides and swings, has lost one of its letters; the

Philippolis Lodge lies empty and abandoned. At

the end of the street the Shalom Church tells you

that Jesus loves you, in glass mosaic. Nearby, a

large hand-drawn portrait of Laurens van der

Post, one of the town’s most well-known and

controversial sons, advertises the museum that

has been established in his honour. Opposite, a

NO-MAN’S-LAND AND NUWELINGS

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young Chinese boy plays in the street, watched by

his father. A kaleidoscope of early impressions.

I settle on the Van der Post Museum as a starting

point. I am familiar with who he is, and we have a

common interest in the Bushmen.

The museum brochure directs me to a labyrinth: ‘It

has been a powerful healing tool for all mankind…

a panacea, a pattern for recovery… take a few

deep breaths and then

follow the path… it changes

inner questions and

despair, often bringing a

state of peace, comfort and

wellbeing, and answers…

when you reach the centre, the all-embracing

centre of LOVE, sit for a while… when you have

rested take a few breaths and start off on the

return journey.’

With these first small steps into the labyrinth, I

truly begin my journey into my family’s past. I am

retracing a well-travelled path filled with hidden

and forgotten stories, uncovering layers as I

walk. I hold in my mind respect for my ancestors,

and my thoughts gravitate towards the figure at

the centre of my family’s history here, my great-

grandfather Edward.

My great-grandfather had a paint business in

Moscow in the 1880s, but he was expelled by an

edict of the Tsar that forbade Jews under a certain

income level to live in the city. I am only too

aware of how my family and their descendants

were airbrushed from history during those

turbulent years and what followed in the 20th

century. The parlance of the new South Africa is

replete with terms like ‘previously advantaged’,

‘privileged’ – but I resist the notion of being

airbrushed from history again. I owe it to my

ancestors to tell this story – both theirs and mine.

During the struggle for South Africa’s interior in

the 19th century, Philippolis was never far from

the action. The expansionist aims of the trekboers

from the Cape Colony, the aftermath of the

Difaqane, the Great Trek of 1832, the aspirations of

the LMS and the British Government’s territorial

ambitions all conspired to make the southern

Orange Free State a contested melting pot.

The Bushmen, the first people both of Africa and

South Africa, had over two centuries become tragic

victims of the greed for land, increasingly driven

off their ancestral grazing areas and away from the

waterholes that sustained their nomadic hunter-

gatherer existence. In response, Dr John Philip of

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the LMS created Philippolis in 1826, in an attempt

to protect the Bushmen of the area. Philippolis

was simultaneously a mission centre, a refuge for

Bushmen and a homeland for the Griqua and

their followers.

Naïvely, and rather patronisingly, the LMS assumed

that the Griqua, and other Khoisan groups like the

Bergenaars, Waterboers and Korana, themselves

the victims of land dispossession and oppression

in the Colony, would rally to protect the Bushmen.

However, the Bushmen were the victims of

concerted genocide by both white and black

settlers. There are a number of early references

to atrocities waged on the Bushmen by the Griqua

and their followers soon after they settled in

Philippolis. One eye-witness, James Howell,

testified at the Bloemhof Commission that he saw

30 Bushmen murdered by a Griqua party who slit

their throats. Another account describes Bushmen

being thrown into a big fire.

As a Griqua leader was later to declare, ‘Ons

het die Boesmans uitgeroei en Dr Philip ons die

land gegee.’ (We chased away the Bushmen and

Dr Philip gave us the land.) By 1827 all the

Bushmen except those who remained as servants

had left Philippolis for Bethulie.

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The Griquas of Philippolis,

through a process of

creolisation that still

maintained their strong

connections to their indigenous roots, had become

consumate survivors: nomadic pastoralists,

excellent horsemen, hunters and traders. Among

them were free slaves and Motswana refugees, as

well as detribalised descendants of pastoral Khoi

tribes of the Cape Colony – ‘Basters’, offspring

of the union of the Khoikhoi and whites, who

survived on cattle theft and plunder. Adam Kok,

the founding father of the group, is believed to be

the son of Claas Kok, a runaway slave.

Although the role played by the LMS might

have served them to a degree, it also worked

increasingly to undermine their cultural heritage.

True Christians were to abandon traditional

dancing, trancing and other cultural practices that

were perceived as heathen. In Philippolis, under

the authority of the LMS, they became acculturised

to the African landscape, and significantly, they

spoke Dutch. However, they were also fluent in a

number of African languages. Their own language

was called Xiri or Nama.

Increasingly, Boer encroachment into the Trans-

Orange area resulted in farms being leased or land

illegally claimed from the Griquas. In a prophetic

letter to the Cape Governor, Hendrik Hendrickze,

a highly articulate and literate spokesman for the

Griqua people, wrote:

You will have heard Sir, that three or four

years ago the Boers had gone everywhere in this

country. They said first it was on account of the

drought; but now there is so much grass within

the Colony, we see another aim and we have

become suspicious. They say it is Bosjesmen

land and therefore they have a right to occupy

that country. I say also that it is Bosjesmen

land. But Sir, where is it not Bosjesmen land?

From here all along the Great River to the

great sea ocean is Bosjesmen land and Graaff

Reinet and everywhere the Boer resides is also

Bosjesmen land. Where are we to go now and

not live in other men’s land?

In 1848 the Trans-Orange was proclaimed to be

land under British sovereignty. In 1854 the British

negotiated with the Boers of the region and

withdrew sovereignty, and the Republic of the

Orange Free State was established. By 1861 the

Griqua people of the Trans-Orange had lost much

of their land to Boer encroachment and despite

appeals to the Colonial authorities, claims to their

land were ultimately not enforced. They were

instead offered a new area that became known

as Griqualand East, with its capital, Kokstad.

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The majority of Griqua people, resident in the

western and northern parts of the Cape, were

now relocated hundreds of kilometres further to

the east to what was more aptly described as no-

man’s-land. Philippolis was officially sold in 1861

for a mere 4 000 pounds as the Griquas trekked to

new pastures.

Not far from the canons and the church in

Philippolis is Oom Japie se Huis, a gallery and

restaurant and reputedly the largest bookstore in

the Karoo, run by Richard Proctor Simms, a retired

diplomat and a recent nuweling (newcomer).

He and his wife Viola do their best to encourage

tourism. He has a love for heritage, memorabilia

and history. ‘There have been 5 000 tourists in the

last five years,’ says Richard in his Oxford-English

accent, ‘Fifty per cent of them are foreigners. We

hope Philippolis will get there, but at my age I

don’t have much time. I’ve signed a 30-year lease.’

He shows me a beautiful old album of photographs

of India from the mid-19th century, which he hopes

will do well in an upcoming auction.

In 1972 the N1 diverted traffic from Philippolis,

severing the town from the national economic

artery and turning it into an off-the-beaten-

track destination. ‘But the road is another of the

challenges. People are keen to get off the N1 to

visit Philippolis for pleasure and curiosity but

not for potholes,’ he bemoans. ‘And now they

have just closed down the only bank in the town.’

Richard is a self-declared and ardent Van der

Postian, and was the first curator of the museum

dedicated to him. I buy one of Van der Post’s

classics, Venture into the Interior, and make my

way another stone’s throw away to visit Mark

Ingle who lives in the original Van der Post home.

Parallel paths and contested histories seem to

run deep in this small town. A nuweling like

Richard, Mark Ingle is not

an ardent Van der Postian.

His intimacy with Van der

Post’s past and memory

has brought him different

insights. He was principal

researcher on a book called The Storyteller, which

recently blew the lid off the myth of Van der Post’s

closely guarded legacy. The Storyteller describes

him as a ‘Bushmen mythologist’ and a ‘master

fabricator’. While Van der Post was clearly a highly

accomplished raconteur and some of his books

are captivating, his writings were ‘often a complex

web of truth and lies’. A keystone of Van der

Post’s public persona was his representation of

himself to Britain (in particular the Establishment)

and the First World as an authority on ‘Africa’

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and the ‘Bushmen’. With regard to his Bushmen

knowledge, he borrowed spectacularly from

the Bleek and Lloyd’s Specimens of Bushmen

Folklore published in 1911. For Mark Ingle, one of

Philippolis’s most famous sons was ‘much loved

outside this country but derided in his own’.

When I say that I am in search of my own

connection to Philippolis and its past, I am

directed to the local museum. Although the

official building is closed, I find Elize Pienaar, its

director, in a house on an adjacent street. She

generously shares with

me her knowledge and

insights. I enquire about

the Jewish connection to

the town, hoping to glean

some records of my family’s

history. She speaks affectionately of Uncle Moritz

Jacobson, whose family still live and farm in the

district, and kindly gives me a transcript of an

interview with him. It is here that a number of

synchronicities happen in the most unexpected

way. The Jacobsons, I discover, were invited by a

cousin, Joseph Orkin, to come to Philippolis. This

was the same person who – according to my great-

aunt Bertha – placed her on his knee, inviting the

family to come to South Africa (Philippolis) ‘where

milk and honey flowed, and even the pigeons

flew about ready roasted with a fork and knife in

their backs, just waiting to be eaten’. Could we

be related? What part of Eastern Europe are the

Jacobsons from?

They came from Klikol, a shtetl on the border of

Lithuania and Latvia, and my family were from

nearby Riga, in Latvia. Old man Jacobson arrived

in Philippolis soon after my great-grandfather

Edward did and began working as a smous (pedlar)

for Orkin, visiting the surrounding farms in the

southern Orange Free State. His actual surname

was Nowensenitz but because the Afrikaans

farmers struggled with this pronunciation, they

preferred to call him Jacob Jacob, which then

morphed into Jacobson. After the Anglo-Boer

War, he became a general dealer. Andries Lubbe,

Laurens van der Post’s uncle, was an established

farmer and a customer of Jacobson’s. He would

regularly enquire when old man Jacobson’s wife

and family were coming to live with him. ‘When I

can afford it,’ was his standard reply. ‘How much

will it cost to bring them out?’ Lubbe enquired

one day. ‘About 150 pounds,’ said Jacob. Soon

thereafter Lubbe turned up at the store with a

bag containing 150 pounds, which he had acquired

from the sale of some farms, emptied its contents

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on the counter, and said, ‘Daar’s honderd en

vyftig pond, laat die vrou dadelik kom.’ (There’s

a hundred and fifty pounds, get your wife here

immediately.)

According to Bertha’s memoirs and some of my

grandfather Bernard’s notes, Edward Weinberg

also began working with Joseph Orkin and then

opened a bakery and a butchery. A beast would

be slaughtered once a month, recalled my

grandfather, and one of the town’s highlights

would be when the best riflemen of the town were

invited to exercise their skills on the luckless

animal from some distance away.

My family quickly integrated into the community,

attending school, playing with farm children,

and pursuing their music interests. Their house,

according to Bertha, was also a home for the

community of Jewish smouse who would spend

weekends at the house and stay during the high

festivals. It is here my family would have crossed

paths with old man Jacobson.

With some excitement I head off to the farm to

connect with these long-lost relatives.

I drive through their farm gate as the sun

begins to set, leaving the wagon-wheel gate

silhouetted against the orange sky. Windmills

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and the occasional hill punctuate an undulating

landscape. I meet Benji and Karen Jacobson

and their sons, who are visiting. They live with

Benji’s sister and mother on an adjacent farm,

called Boesmanfontein. Benji is the grandson of

Moritz Jacobson and the great-grandson of Jacob

Jacobson, who arrived in Philippolis soon after

my family in 1895. As I pull up he is getting out of

an old diesel Land Rover. He is comfortable in his

dirty overalls. Aside from his rabbinical looks, he

is a farmer in every sense of the word and easily

switches between English and Afrikaans.

Their house has trappings of a Jewish ancestry.

There’s a menorah in the lounge, a portrait of a

rabbi and Karen’s own paintings of her children.

During my visit Benji tells me it is three years to

the day since his father passed away on the farm.

The sense of family resonates strongly. ‘Every

little dorp around here had a Jew. The Levis in

Jaggersfontein, the Goldstucks in Trompsberg,

the Ballons in Edenberg. In the late 1980s there

were 22 families in the district. We’re the last of

the Boere Jode (Jewish Afrikaners) here,’ he says,

tugging at his beard.

I enquire how the farm is doing. ‘It’s been a good

year. The best wool price in 15 years – but it’s very

tough. Costs have gone up.’ Almost sensing my

earlier enrapture with the landscape he continues,

‘It’s not romantic living on a farm, you know. It’s

a business and you’re up against a lot of things

– the elements, the bank, the government. My

brother lost six lambs in a night to jackals and my

neighbour 300 sheep to Rift Valley fever because

there’s been too much rain and apparently the

vaccine doesn’t work. As I get older, the more I

work. I haven’t been able to afford a holiday in

four years. I told my kids – I don’t want you to

fucken farm – 42 farms have been bought out in

the district.’

On my way through the town earlier in the day

I saw a newspaper headline, ‘ANC wil Witgrond

inperk’ (ANC to curb white land ownership).

This refers to the government position that

30 per cent of all

white commercial land

should be transferred

to black ownership by

2014. I think of Julius

Malema’s threatening

overtures to take white farm land, the controversy

of the Dubula Amabunu (Shoot the Boer) song,

and of how it translates in this landscape. Our

conversation inevitably drifts there. ‘What are

they (the government) going to do on my farm?

17

Look at Zimbabwe when the war veterans took

the land – it went to ruins.’ Benji is very agitated

and tugs at his beard. ‘I’m not going to farm in

the Congo or Mozambique. I paid for this land –

it doesn’t belong to the blacks, it belongs to the

Bushmen who were here first.’ He tells me 15 farms

were bought for local black farmers in the area.

‘Only one is still working and they want to take

the land from successful functioning farmers …

and then Julius calls us criminals and threatens to

kill us!’ Life is fragile in this landscape.

The next morning I leave early, as the sun rises. I

tell him that my research into the family makes us

far-distant cousins and possibly only by marriage.

Benji is carrying a gun. His eyes are twinkling. ‘I’m

looking for jackals and springbok,’ he says, and I

watch his Land Rover and dust trail disappear.

Later that day, I visit Boesmanfontein and the

natural spring that has such symbolism in the

socio-political landscape. Today there is a sheep-

shearing shed nearby. It was here that the LMS first

established a settlement before Philippolis was

developed in 1816. It was here that 30 Bushmen

were reputedly massacred. It was here that Laurens

van der Post often spent his childhood days and

here where his uncle hung himself on a tree. I watch

the workers collect wood and hear the soft gurgling

spring as it slowly meanders

through giant wattles.

On my way back to town

I pass Simon Tile, one of

Benji’s workers, on his bicycle. He has very strong

Khoisan features. I wonder how much he knows

about Boesmanfontein and the hidden histories

of his ancestors and this landscape. I reserve

these questions for Jane Metekan who lives in

Bergmanshoogte, where a small community of

remaining Griqua inhabitants live on the opposite

side of the town. I introduce myself and say that

I have just come from the Jacobson’s farm. ‘The

Griqua had to hide away like kereltjies (young

boys),’ she says, in beautiful and poetic Afrikaans.

‘The Jacobsons were one of the few farmers who

really helped us. My grandfather worked for old

man Jacobson. They gave us a camp for cattle.

My mother in return worked for them as a gesture

of goodwill.’

There is a gathering in her house of the Griqua

community from all over the district. People are

dressed in their smartest clothes – men in ties

and jackets, women in their Sunday best. They

have come to do a census to show that they have

a real claim to the land here and to establish their

lineage to Adam Kok. She brings up the issue of

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the 15 farms that Benji had spoken to me about.

‘It was only black people who benefited and not

us who are of Khoisan descent. We can show our

lineage back to Adam Kok. The land authorities

said the cut-off date was the 1913 Land Act.’

The meeting begins with a prayer. Jane leads, ‘I

am nothing before you Jesus … I surrender myself

to you.’ Their strong links and Christian faith

have remained despite the overwhelming failure

of the LMS to cement their claims to Philippolis

and the greater area. An elder tells me, ‘The

early missionaries took the land with the gun

and the Bible. We stayed

with them. We have always

been Christians from that

time back. We tried to

work things out with them.’

There is an underlying

sense of desperation in this gathering which

echoes its past. ‘Nelson Mandela is one of us,’ says

another elder, ‘he’s got Khoi blood.’ The Griqua

dispossession in Philippolis took place despite

their commitment to becoming Christians and their

negotiations with the colonial authorities.

The Griqua, like the Khoisan and the Bushmen,

are the forgotten descendants of this landscape.

Jane and her support group are still struggling for

recognition and rights, much like her ancestors

before her. As I leave, Jane asks me, ‘That

Jacobson relative of yours… does he not have

land for us?’

I decide to leave Philippolis on a high note, and do

what many do when they come to town – visit its

latest nuwelings, the endangered Chinese tigers.

Their sanctuary, much like Philippolis, is also

contested – there are in fact two tiger sanctuaries

now. One is run by well-known filmmaker John

Varty and another by Li Quan, an international

fashion icon. Li Quan’s project sets out to

preserve the pure species, while Varty’s sanctuary

interbreeds with other species.

I choose to be a purist and travel along farm roads

through an electrified fence. Here I get to see

King Henry, Tiger Woods and other magnificent

animals in their spacious pens. These are the last

of only ten South Chinese tigers in the wild. ‘Their

breeding has been very slow in the ten years the

sanctuary has been established,’ says Vivienne,

the curator. ‘These tigers are very picky and don’t

necessarily mate with just another nearby female.’

The idea of the project is to build up a sizeable

population of the species and relocate them back

to China. The sanctuary, developed by buying up 17

local farms, is a massive 330 square kilometres.

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Farm, near Phi l ippol is

73

Cross ing the Orange R iver

This book is a personal journey into the family archives of

photographer Paul Weinberg. Childhood sorties into an old black

trunk uncovered family postcards, stamps, letters and photographs

that excited his imagination about what lay beyond his South

African world. These memorabilia connected Weinberg to both his

grandparents’ roots in eastern Europe and his own roots in South

Africa, and prompted an exploration of his family’s footprints

through far-flung small towns in the interior of this country. In

the form of postcards to his great-grandfather Edward, it is both

a visual narrative of this journey and a multi-layered travel book,

which pieces together the jigsaw of his family’s journeys and asks

important questions about who writes history and who is left out.

Paul Weinberg packs irony, empathy and an inquisitive

l ens on h i s SA r oo t s t r e k . He ’ s a mensch . JONATHAN SHAPIRO

9 781431 405541

ISBN 978-1-4314-0554-1www.jacana.co.za

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