Lewis volunteered to fight in 1940. At the battle of Tobruk on 20 June 1942, he was captured by the German army. He spent the remainder of World War II as a prisoner, first in Italy then Germany. Interestingly, being Jewish didn’t affect his treatment by the German army while he was a POW.
After the war, Lewis worked as a civil engineer for the City of Cape Town for most of his life. He was also one of Western Province’s top chess players. As a youth, he was a competent amateur boxer and in recent decades he has been one of the world’s foremost experts on the sport, helping select candidates for boxing’s Hall of Fame.
He was outspoken against Apartheid. For example, he wrote a letter to the Apartheid government on behalf of the South African Chess Federation in defence of the late anti-Apartheid activist Donald Woods (who was also a chess player). He has also written letters to the media in defence of Palestinian rights.
Below are five short video excerpts from the interview, with lightly edited transcriptions below each video.
“I think I’ve lived an interesting life,” Lewis said during the interview. After watching these videos (or reading the transcripts), you might agree.
On joining the army and being captured
When South Africa got involved [in the war] as a Jewish guy I thought it was my duty to fight Hitler and go and volunteer. An entire group from Cape Town went to volunteer. I joined the anti-aircraft.
On 20 June [1942] the Germans bombed non-stop and Tobruk [in Libya] had been evacuated except for our group of anti-aircraft. I can’t confirm but the belief is we shot down about 17 planes.
We got a message that we had ran out of ammunition. My personal feeling was that now I’d had it. If the planes come again we can’t fire, we’ll all be bombed to hell. And then a message came through that Tobruk had surrendered. I had a sigh of relief, because now I thought I’d see the war through. Then the Germans came through and said, “For you my friends, the war is over.”
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On race
An interesting thing [happened while I was a prisoner] which affected my future thoughts. We were all semi-starved; there was hardly any food. The Germans had used mostly black South African prisoners [to work]. And then they moved these guys next to us and they were given food and new uniforms. We were in torn and tattered clothes without food and cigarettes. So our chaps were bumming from the new prisoners, so that’s when I lost my colour bar instincts. The realisation came to me that what happens in life is just chance… there’s no superiority or inferiority between people; there’s just individual characteristics.
Before I was captured we went on leave to Cairo. We were waiting for some transport. There were a number of white guys and a few non-white guys and we just presumed the white guys got preference. When I became a prisoner and I saw how whites were bumming for food, cigarettes and handouts from black prisoners … that completely altered my vision. As an onlooker, I saw that your circumstances change but not your personality. One is equal to another. And that has been my attitude ever since.