NOT ANTI-BRITISH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19898, 28 March 1939, Page 6

NOT ANTI-BRITISH

BOERS IN AFRICA AFRIKANDEE’S DENIAL BROWNSTTIRT MOVEMENT OPPOSED TO JEWS (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. An indignant protest against statements made by a former South Airican pilot that there was a Nazi element in that Dominion, was made by two South African visitors, Miss Bobbie Pretorius, a granddaughter and a great-granddaughter of the famous Boer Generals, and Mrs. Cecil Thurburn, a daughter of the New Zealand war correspondent. Mr. G. PI. Kingswell, who remained in South Africa after the Boer War. Miss Pretorius vigorously denied that the Boer population was still preponderantly anti-British. “I am of pure Dutch descent and have every reason to feel resentment against Britain," she said. “My father's home was burnt to the ground during the Boer War, his goods were confiscated and his wife and children were confined in a camp. If anyone should have knowledge of anti-British feeling, it should be I. I harbour no anti-British sentiment, nor do any other Afrikanders, except those in areas of the Orange Free State and Transvaal, where the settlers are so isolated that the old feeling is retained.” Miss Pretorius did not deny that there was a “brown shirt” movement in South Africa, but declared it was neither pro-German nor anti-British. It was, however, anti-Jewish.