Jasper Petrus Cornelius was die seun van
Sy naam kom voor in hulle ma se sterfkennis van 1902.
Kimberley camp was located in the Cape Colony on the Cape-ORC border but formed part of the ORC system. As one of the besieged towns, Kimberley had suffered severely from the war and there was little sympathy in the town for the camp inmates, especially the families of the Cape rebels who were housed there. Kimberley was a flat, hot town, always short of water and notoriously unhealthy. The camp itself, located on de Beers property in Newton, on the outskirts of the town, was inches deep in loose, sandy soil. (https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/)
Some kind of camp probably came into being in the early stages of the war for relief had to be found for destitute Boers from Griqualand West as early as December 1899. The formal camp, however, was set up by the town commandant on 4 January 1901 and run by Major Wright and the men of the Kimberley Regiment. (https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/)
Emily Hobhouse was contemptuous of Wright, a colonial volunteer rather than a regular soldier, whom she described as a ‘coarse, lazy, indifferent old man’ who did no work and left his son to run the camp. The result was a dirty, smelly camp where whooping cough and measles were rife and there was almost no medical attention. ‘Undesirable’ Cape rebel families, who were ‘not refugees in the true acceptance of the term’, were mixed with people from the Free State, the Transvaal and Bechuanaland. Under military management disorder prevailed in Kimberley. In the beginning the Free State families were rationed differently from the Cape rebels and appear to have been subject to different regulations. A weak superintendent usually meant arbitrary treatment of the people with the result that the Kimberley women were amongst the most bitter that Emily Hobhouse encountered. By February 1901, when the civilian camp administration was formed in the ORC, it was clear that all was not well in Kimberley. (https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/)
At first the authorities considered moving the Free State families to a new camp on the Modder River but, in the end, Kimberley was incorporated into the ORC system. At this stage, the camp was not large, consisting of a total of between 717 and 762 people at the beginning of April 1901. The camp grew quite rapidly, however, as scattered groups from Warrenton and other places were brought in. Some families continued to live in Kimberley, having been certified as medically unfit for tent life. By June, as more people poured in, Kimberley was suffering from the chronic lack of tents that all the camps endured, and consequent overcrowding. By July Kimberley camp had nearly 4,000 whites and over 1,000 blacks and the authorities felt they could take no more. Plans were made to establish an extension at Orange River Station. (https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/)
When Dr Kendal Franks visited the camp in December 1901, he described this complicated place in some detail. The families of the Cape rebels were kept in an enclosed area, surrounded by a barbed wire fence and guarded by sentries. The rest of the camp was unenclosed and divided into regional sections such as the Boshof, Fauresmith, Petrusburg and Hoopstad sections for the ORC, and a separate Transvaal section. (https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/)
This sense, that Kimberley was a discontented camp, prevailed right through the war. The mortality was one reason. Like Bloemfontein and Irene, measles struck early and deaths increased rapidly in the early months of 1901, exacerbated by the cold winter and the poor quality of the overcrowded tents. A severe shortage of medical staff made it difficult to take effective action and, for a time, Kimberley was reliant on unqualified people. Hospital accommodation, in the usual marquees, was also unsatisfactory. The fact that the measles epidemic peaked as early as July 1901 is not surprising for Kimberley was one of the first towns to house a camp on the route of the march of the British troops to the north. While the troops themselves did not suffer from measles, we know that some of the Boers at nearby Paardeberg suffered from measles and the troops brought the kind of confusion in their wake, which encouraged the spread of disease. Conditions began to improve a little when new medical staff came in.(https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/)
A second reason why Kimberley seemed a discontented camp was related to the unwillingness of the men to do any work, as they did in most other camps. Viner Johnson complained ‘They are largely graziers, of nomadic instinct and are totally averse to work, and owe and practice obedience to no man’. By October 1901 the men’s failure to work continued to be an issue. The problem hinged partly on the fact that the men could obtain paid work in the town and were reluctant, consequently, to do unpaid work in the camp. The Ladies Committee also noted the freedom people had to go into the town, although there was a store in the camp. They only had to obtain passes if they wanted to go to the theatre or a party. People continued to work in the town, the young women as domestic servants and the boys on the debris heaps of the diamond mines and such people often lived in the town but continued to receive some rations. This was not a situation that the camp authorities liked and they usually refused to feed town refugees. They were often a nuisance for they tended to return to the camps as their money ran out, making extra work for the camp staff. (https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/)
A third critical problem in Kimberley camp related to the presence of the Cape rebel families. The military regarded them as prisoners and treated them accordingly. The superintendent found it impossible to run a camp in which some of the inmates were treated more harshly than others and was constantly at odds with the local commandant over the matter. (https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/)
To the last, however, Kimberley remained an unhappy camp. As late as May 1902, when Dr Parry Edwards inspected the camp, he considered it ‘backward’. Repatriation took a long time from Kimberley camp, perhaps because the camp population was so diverse, although the majority of the Transvalers had been sent away earlier in 1902. One difficulty was that there was no Repatriation Board in the district and many of the families had to make their own arrangements to return home. (https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/)
Johanna Elizabeth verlaat die Kimberley Konsentrasiekamp op 2 Augustus 1902.
Others, with nowhere to go, refused to leave. By the end of December 1902 there were still more than 200 people in the camp, mainly Boshof people. The camp was eventually closed on 9 January 1903. (https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/Histories/Kimberley/)
Personal Details
|
|
Name:
|
Mrs Johanna Elizabetha van der Westhuizen
|
Born in
camp?
|
No
|
Died in
camp?
|
No
|
Gender:
|
female
|
Race:
|
white
|
Marital
status:
|
widowed
|
Nationality:
|
Free State
|
Occupation:
|
bywoner
|
Registration
as head of family:
|
Yes
|
Unique
ID:
|
76795
|
Camp History
|
|
Name:
|
Kimberley
RC
|
Age
arrival:
|
50
|
Date
arrival:
|
01/08/1901
|
Date
departure:
|
02/08/1902
|
Reason
departure:
|
discharged
|
Stock
into camp:
|
no
|
Stock
out of camp:
|
no
|
Tent
number:
|
3857,
3942
|
Farm History
|
|
Name:
|
Koppiesvlei
|
District:
|
Jacobsdal
|
Status of Sons
|
|
Type:
|
on commando
|
Notes:
|
Joachim Zacharia, Nicholaas, Hendrik Johannes Benjamin
|
Relationships
|
|
Mrs Johanna Elizabetha van der Westhuizen
|
|
is the mother of Miss
Hermina Catharina van der Westhuizen
|
|
is the mother of Master
Jasper Petrus van der Westhuizen
|
|
is the mother of Mr
Johannes van der Westhuizen
|
|
is the mother of Master
Johannes Jacobus van der Westhuizen
|
|
is the mother of Miss
Magdalena Hendrika van der Westhuizen
|
|
is the mother of Miss
Maria Magdalena van der Westhuizen
|
|
is the unknown of Master
Matthys van der Westhuizen (Jan Marthinus)
|
|
is the mother of Miss
Petronella Francina van der Westhuizen
|
|
is the mother of Miss
Sophia Wilhelmina van der Westhuizen
|
|
Sources
|
|
Title:
|
SRC 83
Kimberley CR
|
Type:
|
Camp register
|
Location:
|
Free State Archives Repository
|
Reference
No.:
|
SRC 83
|
Notes:
|
p.188a
|
