Liliesleaf Farm, also spelt Lilliesleaf and also known simply as Liliesleaf, is a location in northern

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

, South Africa, which is most noted for its use as a safe house for

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

(ANC) activists during the

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

years in the 1960s. In 1963, the South African police raided the farm, arresting more than a dozen ANC leaders and activists, who were then tried and prosecuted during the

Rivonia Trial The Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in apartheid-era South Africa between 9 October 1963 and 12 June 1964, after a group of anti-apartheid activists were arrested on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia. The farm had been the secret location f ...

. After the end of apartheid, the property was restored and turned into a museum and

national heritage site A national heritage site is a heritage site having a value that has been registered by a governmental agency as being of national importance to the cultural heritage or history of that country. Usually such sites are listed in a heritage regis ...

. It was closed to visitors in September 2021, but was scheduled to reopen a year later.

History

The farmhouse is located on George Avenue in

Rivonia Rivonia is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa in the Sandton area. It is located in Region E of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. Rivonia is one of the most affluent residential and business suburbs of Johannesburg, and r ...

, once a remote spot in a country village, now a suburb around north of

, in the

Sandton Sandton is a financial, commercial and residential area, located in the northern part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. Formerly an independent municipality, Sandton's name came from the combination of two of its suburbs, Sa ...

area. In 1961, the property was purchased by

Arthur Goldreich Arthur Goldreich (25 December 1929 – 24 May 2011) was a South African-Israeli abstract painter and a key figure in the anti-apartheid movement in the country of his birth and a critic of Israel. Early life Goldreich was born in Pietersburg, So ...

and

Harold Wolpe Harold Wolpe (14 January 1926 – 19 January 1996) was a South African lawyer, sociologist, political economist and anti-apartheid activist. He was arrested and put in prison in 1963 but escaped and spent 30 years in exile in the United Kingdom. ...

with funds from the underground

South African Communist Party The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded on 12 February 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), and tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by t ...

, to use as a

safe house A safe house (also spelled safehouse) is a dwelling place or building whose unassuming appearance makes it an inconspicuous location where one can hide out, take shelter, or conduct clandestine activities. Historical usage It may also refer to ...

for political fugitives. Goldreich lived there with his then wife Hazel and their two sons, Nicholas and Paul. Being

white South Africans White South Africans are South Africans of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original colonists, known as Afr ...

in an area reserved for white people, they did not attract attention, and provided cover for black anti-apartheid activists. It was acquired at a time when there was a shift in focus and tactics within the liberation movement, from

passive resistance Nonviolent resistance, or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, constr ...

armed struggle War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organiz ...

, when

uMkhonto we Sizwe uMkhonto weSizwe (; abbreviated MK; ) was the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress (ANC), founded by Nelson Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre. Its mission was to fight against the South African government to brin ...

(MK) was established. Liliesleaf soon became the headquarters of MK. African National Congress leader

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

needed a safe place from which to operate, and lived there under the assumed identity as a farmworker called David Motsamayi, which was the name of one of his former clients. However he was arrested in Howick in August 1962 on unrelated charges (inciting workers to strike, and departing South Africa without valid

travel document A travel document is an identity document issued by a government or international entity pursuant to international agreements to enable individuals to clear border control measures. Travel documents usually assure other governments that the beare ...

s). Others who met in secret at Liliesleaf included

Walter Sisulu Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu (18 May 1912 – 5 May 2003) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress (ANC). Between terms as ANC Secretary-General (1949–1954) and ANC ...

Govan Mbeki Govan Archibald Mvunyelwa Mbeki (9 July 1910 – 30 August 2001) was a South African politician, military commander, Communist leader who served as the Secretary of Umkhonto we Sizwe, at its inception in 1961. He was also the younger son of Ch ...

Ahmed Kathrada Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada OMSG (21 August 1929 – 28 March 2017), sometimes known by the nickname "Kathy", was a South African politician and anti-apartheid activist. Kathrada's involvement in the anti-apartheid activities of the African Natio ...

Denis Goldberg Denis Theodore Goldberg (11 April 1933 – 29 April 2020) was a South African social campaigner who was active in the struggle against apartheid. He was accused No. 3 of 11 defendants in the Rivonia Trial of 1964, alongside the better-known Ne ...

Raymond Mhlaba Raymond Mphakamisi Mhlaba OMSG (12 February 1920 – 20 February 2005) was an anti-apartheid activist, Communist and leader of the African National Congress (ANC) who became the first premier of the Eastern Cape. Mhlaba spent 25 years of his ...

Elias Motsoaledi Elias Mathope Motsoaledi OMSG (26 July 1924 – 9 May 1994) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. He was Accused No.9 in the Rivonia Trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 1963 with a group of anti-Apartheid revolution ...

Andrew Mlangeni Andrew Mokete Mlangeni (6 June 192521 July 2020), also known as Percy Mokoena, Mokete Mokoena, and Rev. Mokete Mokoena, was a South African political activist and anti-apartheid campaigner who, along with Nelson Mandela and others, was imprison ...

James Kantor James Kantor (26 February 1927 – 2 February 1974) was a South African lawyer and writer. James Kantor was born in Johannesburg to a Jewish family. A prominent Johannesburg lawyer in the 1950s, Kantor was attorney for Nelson Mandela and i ...

Ruth First Heloise Ruth First OLG (4 May 1925 – 17 August 1982) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar. She was assassinated in Mozambique, where she was working in exile, by a parcel bomb built by South African police. Family and ...

Joe Slovo Yossel Mashel "Joe" Slovo (23 May 1926 – 6 January 1995) was a South African politician and Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist. A Marxist-Leninist, he was a long-time leader and theorist in the South African Com ...

, and

Lionel Bernstein Lionel "Rusty" Bernstein (20 March 1920 – 23 June 2002) was a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist and political prisoner. He played a key role in political organizations such as the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Afric ...

. MK launched Operation O Mayibuye (aka Operation Mayibuye) from Liliesleaf. On 11 July 1963, security

police raid A police raid is an unexpected visit by police or other law enforcement officers, which aims to use the element of surprise to seize Evidence (law), evidence or arrest suspects believed to be likely to Tampering with evidence, hide evidence, res ...

ed the farm and arrested 19 members of the underground, later charging and prosecuting a number of them with

sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, government, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization (warfare), demoralization, destabilization, divide and rule, division, social disruption, disrupti ...

. The police had learned of the location from two sources: George Mellis, who lived nearby in the Rivonia Caravan Park, noticed a number of cars going in and out of the farm area and told his family; and a police informant in MK. The activists had been meeting in the thatched room and were surprised by the raid. They had already decided beforehand to move to another safe house, with 11 July being their last meeting at Liliesleaf. The police found documents during the raid that incriminated Mandela, so he was charged and brought to trial with the others. The trial, which ran from October 1963 to June 1964, ended with Mandela and other prominent leaders, including Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Kathrada, Goldberg, Mhlaba, Motsoaledi, and Mlangeni being found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The site as a museum

The Schreider family bought the farm after the raid and turned into a

guest house A guest house (or guesthouse, also rest house) is a kind of lodging. In some parts of the world (such as the Caribbean), a guest house is a type of inexpensive hotel-like lodging. In others, it is a private home that has been converted for the e ...

. However, after a reunion of the accused in the Rivonia Trial held in 2001, Nicholas Wolpe (son of Harold Wolpe and nephew of James Kantor) decided to establish a trust which would own and administer the site and create a museum for future generations. The first phase of its restoration began in 2008. Exhibits were created, and a café, along with overnight accommodation, a

conference centre A convention center (American English; or conference centre in British English) is a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typica ...

, and various other buildings were constructed. It was recognised by the

South African Government The Government of South Africa, or South African Government, is the national government of the Republic of South Africa, a parliamentary republic with a three-tier system of government and an independent judiciary, operating in a parliamentary ...

(headed by the ANC after they were democratically elected in 1994) as a national asset, of significance to both the history of the ANC and the South African

liberation struggle Wars of national liberation, also called wars of independence or wars of liberation, are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) ...

. From around 2008 the

Department of Sports, Arts and Culture The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) is a department of the Government of South Africa with responsibility for sport, the arts, culture, and heritage. It was created in June 2019 by the merger of the Department of Arts and Culture w ...

and its predecessors provided more than for its maintenance. On 24 November 2014 it was declared a listed as a Grade 1 site. The site was nominated for World Heritage Site status, as one of a group called "Human Rights, Liberation Struggle and Reconciliation: Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites", in 2015. On 2 September 2016 Liliesleaf was declared a

in the '' South African Government Gazette''. The site was owned by the Liliesleaf Trust, and run by Nicholas Wolpe, founder and CEO of the trust, until 2021. From around 2008 until its closure in 2021, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the

provided more than million for its maintenance. However, the museum closed its doors in September 2021, during the

, a decision made by the CEO without consulting the board. The department said that Wolpe had not used million of a funding grant given to Liliesleaf in 2015, and that they would be taking it over. (Apparently it was supposed to have been spent on

capital expenditure Capital expenditure or capital expense (abbreviated capex, CAPEX, or CapEx) is the money an organization or corporate entity spends to buy, maintain, or improve its fixed assets, such as buildings, vehicles, equipment, or land. It is considered ...

, but Wolpe spent it on running costs.) On 10 March 2022, the board suspended Wolpe, and the reopening of Liliesleaf was scheduled to take place in September 2022. Sport, Arts and Culture Minister

Nathi Mthethwa Emmanuel Nkosinathi Mthethwa (born 23 January 1967) is a South African politician who is currently serving as South African Ambassador to France. He represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly of South Africa betwee ...

said that a process had begun towards declaring Liliesleaf Museum "as a

cultural institution A cultural institution or cultural organization is an organization within a culture or subculture that works for the Preservation (library and archive), preservation or promotion of culture. The term is especially used of public and charitable org ...

in accordance with the Cultural Institutions Act". This would enable

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

to oversee the museum. There was some concern that there was a political motive in using the museum to promote the ANC, but board member Themba Wakashe said that he would not allow this to happen, as it was a site for all South Africans.

Artefacts

The museum houses many significant historical artefacts, including the original copy of the

Freedom Charter The Freedom Charter was the statement of core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies: the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats ...

, Mandela's

arrest warrant An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by a judge or magistrate on behalf of the state which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual or the search and seizure of an individual's property. Canada Arrest warrants are issued by a jud ...

, and

Oliver Tambo Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo (27 October 191724 April 1993) was a South African anti-apartheid politician and activist who served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1967 to 1991. Biography Childhood Oliver Tambo was ...

pen gun A pen gun is a firearm that resembles an ink pen. They generally are of small caliber (e.g., .22 LR, .25 ACP, .32 ACP, .38-caliber, etc.) and are single shot. Early examples of pen guns were pinfired, but modern designs are rim or centerfire ...

Name

The farm is referred to either as "Liliesleaf" or "Lilliesleaf", with the former spelling used at the site itself.

History

The site as a museum

Artefacts

Name

References

Further reading