Paul and Adelaide Joseph archive

Paul Joseph was born in South Africa in 1930 to parents of South Indian heritage. He awoke to political activism as an Indian in the racially segregated schools and slums of Johannesburg, and aged just 15, committed himself to fight oppression. He became a trade unionist activist and a leading member of the Transvaal Indian Congress and the South African Communist Party. He participated in political campaigns from the passive resistance of the 1940s through to the armed struggle adopted by the African National Congress (ANC) in the 1960s. He was arrested and banned several times and, in 1956, was one of the 156 people accused of high treason by the Apartheid government – alongside Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Lilian Ngoyi, Ruth First and Helen Joseph. Paul was held in detention following the Sharpeville Massacre, the banning of the ANC and the imposition of the State of Emergency in 1960. One of the first recruits of uMKhonto we Sizwe (the armed wing of the ANC), he was put under house arrest and then solitary confinement in the Johannesburg prison known as The Fort. In 1958 Joseph he married Adelaide, an Indian South African and trained nurse, with whom he had four children, of whom the first were twins Zoya and Anand, born in 1959. Anand suffered brain damage at birth and needed constant care, and the difficulties of providing and caring for the family, especially after Joseph was banned from working in 1964, proved a heavy challenge. In early 1965 Adelaide left South Africa taking Anand for treatment in East Germany and later that year, knowing that he was likely to be detained again soon, Joseph fled the country via Botswana and joined his family in London. The family lived initially in small flat in Notting Hill Gate, supported initially by other activists already in exile as well as UK anti-apartheid supporters. He worked for Abbey Life (founded by South African lawyer Joel Joffe and South African-born British financier Mark Weinberg), which employed several South African political exiles and took on large numbers of African, Caribbean and Asian staff as it expanded. In 1968 the family moved to Mill Hill in Barnet where, with support of Labour councillor Albert Tomlinson, they founded a new Anti-Apartheid Movement branch which became one of the most active in the UK. When Abbey Life relocated to Bournemouth (in the 1970s?), Joseph left and for a while worked for Oxfam. Throughout his time in exile Paul Joseph campaigned ceaselessly for the liberation of South Africa. He worked particularly closely with Amnesty International, assisting them with South African issues and helping them raise support for the ANC’s struggle against apartheid.

Adelaide Joseph was born in Boksburg near Johannesburg in 1932 and grew up in a deeply conservative Indian family living in Barberton. Joseph was politicised by her experiences of racial discrimination during her time as a nurse in Barberton hospital and had a sense of the injustice of apartheid from an early age. In 1957 she met prominent political activist Paul Joseph and, at his suggestion, attended Treason Trial hearings against anti-apartheid activists, where she became acquainted with many of the most active political leaders and their families, including the Mandelas. She married Paul Joseph in 1958 and became increasingly active in the liberation movement. Alongside her friend Winnie Mandela, Joseph was active in the South African Federation of Women and played a central role in keeping up the morale of prisoners’ wives, sharing money and providing support for prisoners’ families. She became a familiar figure outside prisons in Johannesburg and Pretoria and confronted prison officials about visiting rights of the spouses, mothers and sisters of prisoners. During Rivonia Trial in 1963 and 1964, Joseph accompanied Winnie Mandela to the trial in Pretoria and on at least one occasion she visited Nelson Mandela in prison. Her visits to anti-apartheid activists imprisoned by the South African regime were often traumatic. Over the years she worked with Nelson Mandela, Moses Kotane, J.B. Marks, Mac Maharaj and the Naidoo family. Some of the work was open; at other times she was asked to carry out tasks by some of the leaders and activists in the underground. She was skilled at smuggling messages from prisoners to activists still on the outside, warning them to evade arrests and reporting on police brutality inside. During the State of Emergency in 1960, when two thousand activists were arrested, Joseph acted as courier for Moses Kotane, general secretary of the South African Communist Party, and she arranged the removal of arms and documents at request of Communist lawyer Bram Fischer. Adelaide and Paul Joseph had four children together, of whom the first were twins Zoya and Anand, born in 1959. Anand suffered brain damage at birth and required constant support. Despite the help and support the Josephs received from family and friends, the main burden of care fell on Adelaide Joseph and living conditions in South Africa were very difficult. In early 1965 she and Anand left South Africa for the UK, from where she took Anand for treatment in East Germany. Later that year the rest of the family joined her in London. Anand remained in East Germany in hospital until his death in 1970. In exile, as well as raising her children, and later running a catering business, Adelaide campaigned for the liberation of South Africa and maintained her life-long friendship with Winnie Mandela. She was active in Anti-Apartheid Movement, women’s groups and the Workers Educational Association. After the legalisation of the ANC she visited South Africa in 1990 for the first time since going into exile in 1965. She died in 2022.