Boers. Concentration Camps.
Heroes Remember - South African War
Boers. Concentration Camps.
Transcript
Picture of six soldiers standing or on a fence.
Interviewer: Now I'd like to get on to something a little bit different. I'd like to ask you what you thought of the Boers, themselves as, as people and as, as warriors. Well, well I'll tell ya. The Boers were a first class people. They were, they were real gentlemen. That's what they were. Now I tell ya, I was on a, on a, with four of us. Started, was sent out to burn anything that was burnable; farms, or houses, bring in the people into concentration camps. Bring em into, theSoldier holding his rifle on horseback.
troops to be put into concentration camps. Well, there was four of us, we went out, and we went to this farm and we told them what we were going do and they got to pack up and get ready to move on with us and that they got to go to a concentration camp Interviewer: God, how did you feel then? How did you reconcile that; your orders with your conscience? Well, well, we were, we were doing our duty. Interviewer: That's always a soldiers excuse though, I mean... We were doing our duty, and we were trying to make it comfortable for the, the people that we were taking. We didn't do anything rash or out of, disrespectful. Well these people they entertained us, and one of the young ladies in the house she, we said,Soldier posing with rifle slung.
"Would you have any bread in the house?" "Well yes, we got some in the oven." Well, one of the young ladies went into the house and they went up into the barn with a pail and they milked one of of the cows up there. And they brought it down and they, they give us some hot bread, some hot bread and some butter and some milk. And, by gosh, you couldn't go and burn their house down when they were acting like that, could ya. So, we stayed around there and we went out and set fire to an isolated barn outside the big barn, and the house, away from it, we stayed around there til the place was safe. Then we went on,Picture of a man standing and a woman sitting, holding flowers.
we didn't have no refugees, we don't have no fire in the house, and we didn't have no nothing and everybody was happy and that was the end of that. But they treated us and they give us some eggs too, out of, from the henhouse. They give us some eggs and they give us a loaf of bread to take with us, bread was worth a lot of money in them... way we was fixed we wasn't getting no bread, you know. We was just getting biscuits, hardtack. We, we'd get lots of meat, but bread was out of the question altogether. We got preserved vegetables, a lot of preservedThree Veterans standing in front of war memorial.
vegetables. You'd, you'd take that and you'd go along and you'd see a hen or you'd, you'd get a chunk of a sheep you'd go down to to the commissary at the end of, the at the back of the camp and and slaughter a sheep, cut the hind leg off and take that up and put it in a square tin, a gasoline tin, that you used for a pot, was hung over a cow dung fire, over a dung fire. We didn't have, only wood once in awhile we could scrounge around. And some fella would come down the line, and there would, one man would be sitting a his bevee watching his kettle boiling, and perhaps it was about half cooked, and some fella would come down whistling down the line and he'd grab the leg a, leg of lamb andBoer War Veteran talking with current service men.
he'd start chewing it and he say, "Hey fella, come on, bring that back up." "Oh go on, take the whole thing, get!" That's the kind of a life we had, we had to cook our own grub as we went. We didn't have no cook. Interviewer: Were you living off the land? We were, well (Pretty much) pretty much, yes, but we had lots of grub, preserved vegetables, jam and biscuits and hardtack, like that. But we could get all the fresh meat we wanted, because they were driving cattle and sheep. They cull them all the time.Boer War Veteran sitting on a chair, holding a document.
Did you ever hear of any incidents of cruelty other than the one you just related. I mean was, was cruelty on both sides, was it common or... Well no, not altogether, I never did only, only thing that I can say about the Boers, I thought they were pretty humane as far as they could be. Now, there was one instance that um, let me see whether it was on his home or... I just forget where that was,Picture of six soldiers standing or on a fence.
in the Orange Free state where there was quite a battle and we lost quite a few dead there, on both sides, and there was an Armistice signed. Or they called an Armistice, a cease-fire and they both ceased fire and they both joined in to bury the dead. And over the dead bodies they both sung side by side, the Boers and the British, side by side, sang hymns and that right over the dead. Now that was one instance that I do know and then when after it was, the funeral services were all over, each side went back to his own quarters and carried on the business after. But as far as any, any violence from either side ISoldier holding his rifle on horseback.
don't, never heard of it, as far as I'm concerned. Interviewer: Now you mentioned heliographs a little while ago. Would you explain exactly what heliograph is? Well a heliograph is a, is a kind of a, well, it's something like a, to my way of thinking, it's like a telescope on a stand and you can use it at night or in sunlight. You can use it from the sun, or you could use it by a lamp at night. And that reflects the light onto a mirror. Now you would be posted, we'll say up near Spruce Lake or you'd be posted on some high elevation and you'd have to get and you'd contact the sun and you'd throw it till you picked up my, my, my, mirror. And oneSoldier posing with rifle slung.
mirror reflects unto another, see one mirror reflects onto another and you would find that and then it's dot and dash, dot and dash system. Interviewer: I see. Was this used a lot? Oh, it was used all the time, you couldn't get along without it, couldn't get along without it. You had to use that and then they had the field telegraph and then they, and that used to get cut once in awhile, the field telegraph. They'd run a wire along the ground for miles and miles and miles. Sometimes the Boer would pick it up and tap it and... Interviewer: Now you mentioned concentration camps. Now this isn't a favourite subject of a lot of people, but it's sort of ironic that it's the British who really started, well really for the first time, concentration camps. Did you ever see one?Picture of a man standing and a woman sitting, holding flowers.
Yes, there was one at Standerton. There was one at Standerton, and they had a concentration camp at, I think it was Peters Morrisburg a small one. I think they had a small one at Newcastle Interviewer: What was the purpose of the concentration camp? Well the purpose was to put the prisoners in and feed them and house and make them comfortable and look after them, generally and they, they got used pretty good. Interviewer: And that's not what modern historians are saying. Well, now as far, I don't know, only what I seen myself. I don'tThree Veterans standing in front of war memorial.
know what other people seen. But I know there and some of them that a, that a, now in the one in Newcastle I wasn't there very much, but a, the one in Newcastle there was a small concentration camp and one at... one at... Peters Morrisburg. But a, those concentration camps were under good management and they, there were no complaints to amount to anything other, you might find some, might find somebody that could find some fault, to find with something, but, I never heard of it.Boer War Veteran talking with current service men.
Interviewer: Well concentration camps, especially since the end of the Second World War, and... Well, you couldn't compare, you couldn't compare how prisoners was treated of the South African, the Boer with the First or Second World War. You couldn't compare, there was no comparison.Description
Mr. Weaver shares his thoughts on the Boers as people and the purpose of concentration camps.
Frank Weaver
Frank Weaver was born in England, April 7th, 1881 and moved to Canada following his service in the South African War. At the time of this interview Mr. Weaver was 97-years-old. This interview was recorded in Saint John, New Brunswick on August 13, 1971 as part of the Living History Project completed by students and faculty of Military and Strategic Studies, Department of History, University of New Brunswick. This interview is used with permission of the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick. Mr. Weaver's interview was taped outdoors. VAC apologizes for the sometimes poor audio quality of these clips.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 10:02
- Person Interviewed:
- Frank Weaver
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- South African War
- Branch:
- Army
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