Born in Raguva, a small town in Lithuania on October 17, 1924, Esther Barsel (née Levin) came with her mother to South Africa in 1927 at the age of three to join her father, who had been living since 1926 with her mother’s brother on a farm in the Middleburg-Bethel area (Eastern Transvaal, now known as Mpumelanga). He bought a farm store in the area where the family lived for eight years. As an only child, Esther was very lonely, as she found the children at the farm school she attended very unfriendly, making snide remarks about the Jews. Later, when she went to boarding school in the area, she was accused of killing Christ. She contracted rheumatic fever and had to stay at home for six months without any medical attention.

In 1935, Barsel’s father sold his business and the family moved to Johannesburg. There she joined Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsair, the most left of the Zionist Socialist organizations. When she was in high school, a friend invited her to the Left Club, where for the first time she met people of color on an equal basis and realized that a struggle was occurring in South Africa. She started attending political classes and was soon recruited into the Young Communists’ League. She became convinced that she had to join the Liberation struggle, as she wished to strive for freedom for all people in South Africa, white and Black.

After she finished high school, Barsel sold the anti-apartheid newspapers Inkululeka and The Guardian to the Black African population. Aware that most members of the Liberation movement were actively involved in trade unions, she too wished to work for the movement full-time. She started working as secretary for the Friends of the Soviet Union, where she met her future husband, Hymie Barsel. Their romance blossomed on the long train journeys to spread the words of Karl Marx. They were married on December 4, 1945. Their eldest daughter was born in 1948 and their second daughter in 1951; a third daughter followed later.

In 1948 the Nationalists came to power and in 1950 the Communist Party was officially banned, but it was almost immediately reconstituted underground. This led to the formation in its stead of the Liberal Party and the Congress of Democrats (COD). Esther joined the Congress of Democrats, which worked among whites to popularize the Liberation struggle. They knocked on doors, sold literature, held house meetings and public meetings, and raised funds through donations and social functions. In 1953/4 the Congress Alliance was formed, consisting of the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Indian Congress (SAIC), the COD, the South African Coloured People’s Organisation, and later the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). Together these organizations drew up a Freedom Charter, their own declaration of human rights, which was ratified in 1955.

In the Treason Trial of 1956-1961, which aimed to stamp out resistance against apartheid as expressed in the Freedome Charter, Hymie Barsel was one of the 156 accused (including Nelson Mandela), all of whom were eventually released. (Of the 26 whites arrested, fourteen were Jewish, despite the fact that Jews made up only 3% of the white population in South Africa.) Esther and Hymie were also among the twelve people arrested in July 1964 for being members of the illegal South African Communist Party. In the early hours of the morning of July 3, 1964, the couple were picked up by the Security police at their home in Yeoville in Johannesburg. They were unable to make arrangements for their three daughters, Sonja, Linda, and Merle, who were left alone to fend for themselves.

Barsel had been working tirelessly for the underground, serving quite openly as a link between the banned liberation movements and activists. The 1964 trial was the only Apartheid-era trial with seven white women in detention. In an attempt to force the state to promptly charge or release them, the women went on a hunger strike soon after their arrest. Barsel lasted for 35 days. After 53 days in solitary detention, on August 26, 1964, she was finally charged for her involvement with the SACP. On the first day of the trial, her husband Hymie was allowed bail to go home to his children, who had been under the care of his sister and brother-in-law. He was subsequently found not guilty. The women were eventually sentenced to imprisonment for various periods at the Barberton Women’s prison in Mpumalanga, notorious for its brutal treatment of its inmates. Barsel was sentenced to three years hard labor. After her release, she was served with an approximately twenty-year banning order, a repressive extra-judicial measure under which the target was confined to his/her home, not allowed to meet with more than one person at a time, and could not be quoted, among other measures.

Following the return of former ANC and Mkhonto we Sizwe (the militant arm of the ANC) leader Chris Hani to South Africa from Lusaka, Zambia, in 1990, after 39 years of exile, Barsel became his private secretary. She was deeply affected by his assassination on April 10, 1993, and kept a keyring with his picture until she died.

Barsel continued her active involvement in bringing positive change to the people of South Africa until the end of her life. She remained committed to informing youth about the struggle for democracy and workers’ rights and was regularly seen in action at the headquarters of the Congress of Trade Unions (COSATU) in Johannesburg, Gauteng. Even in 2006, at the age of 81, she was blogging about the long-defunct Friends of the Soviet Union.

Barsel, willing and able to turn her hand and heart to any task, played many roles in the movement. She committed her life to the cause of liberation, and never faltered from it. This came at the cost of her family, as the constant harassment from the Security Police and alienation from the Jewish community, which avoided anyone who actively opposed the Nationalist government for fear of being arrested for having likeminded views, robbed her children of a care-free childhood.

For Mandela’s 90^th birthday celebrations on July 8, 2008, Barsel was one of only 25 people invited as special friends to the private lunch. Three months later, on October 6, 2008, she died. News of her death was met by an overwhelming flow of tributes from comrades. One of these was Mandela, whose letter of condolence to the family was read at her funeral:

Dear Merle and family - We have been deeply saddened by the loss of Comrade Esther. She dedicated her life to the struggle for justice in South Africa, and was a formidable and highly respected resource to the movement in which she was associated for so long. She will be remembered as a great South African and a beloved comrade. Please be assured of our support and solidarity during this difficult time. Sincerely – Nelson Mandela.

Barsel has been honored for her invaluable contribution to the struggle in various ways, including a twelve-foot portrait at the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, captioned “Rebel.” An exhibition was held at the Barberton Museum highlighting women activist prisoners and their experiences; Barsel’s cell is part of the museum as a memorial installation. Her strength and bravery in the face of adversity allowed her to become an important player in the eventual dismantling of Apartheid. She was buried according to Jewish tradition.