Solly Sachs

Emil Solomon “Solly” Sachs (11 November 1900 – 30 July 1976) was a South African trade unionist and an anti-apartheid activist.

Early life Solly Sachs was born in 1900 in Kamai, Lithuania, to a Lithuanian-Jewish family. His parents were Abraham Saks and Hannah Rivkin. His early childhood education was in Hebrew and the study of the Talmud. He had an interest in politics and was drawn to socialism , joining the Communist Party of South Africa in 1919 and the Communist Youth League in 1921. Its membership during 1930/31 stood at 1700 members, two-thirds were garment workers, made up mostly of Afrikaner women, though men made up the union committee, but this would change, and by 1939, all were women. They were regarded by the Afrikaner elite as poor and passive victims of Jewish communism unable to stand-up for themselves which was going to destroy the Afrikaner people.

Exile Solly went into exile in England on 30 January 1953. He took up a two-year fellowship at the University of Manchester and a years research post at the University of London. He also ran unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate in Sheffield. He continued to protest against the South African government in London after his son Albie was arrested and demonstrated again in 1961 against the Sharpeville massacre. He would die in London on 30 July 1976.

Books by Solly Sachs The Choice before South Africa (1952) Garment workers in Action (1957) Rebels Daughters (1957) The South African Treason Trial (1959) The Anatomy of Apartheid (1965)