Audio file 31-2

[continues from 31-1] Wonga has been speaking about World War II impacting Ernest and Sonja's lives, he speaks of Ernest's incarceration in the camp and is amazed that the Germans allowed their marriage

Ernest and Sonja were married at Grand Caserne at St Denis internment camp. As a camp for British non-combattants, there was relatively greater degree of freedeom for the prisoners

In quick turns, Wonga returns to the artists and intellectuals at the outbreak of war (mentions Sonja and Bille), Ernest and Sonja leaving for Denmark then returning to Paris (mentions Cobra); he notes that the break with the Danes would leave a wound in them and Ernest agrees

[tape stopped and restarts] Wonga asks Ernest if a photo of Jewish children in Camp Drancy brings back any memories?

Drancy was another internment camp, eventually set up to be a transit camp for French Jews. Ernest was transferred to this camp for unknown length of time but was returned to St Denis

[tape stopped and restarts] Wonga asks Ernest how he came to know of art in Europe whilst in South Africa? Ernest recalls meeting Elsa Dziomba, a German Jewish refugee and German expressionist; that she spoke of the artist Lippy Lipshitz to him

In a letter from Elza Miles is a news article with a photo of Dziomba's bust, she asks Ernest if that was the work he saw in her studio

Ernest continues on meeting Lipshitz when he moved to Cape Town (District 6), that Lipshitz explained the importance of African art to European modern artists

District 6 is a neighbourhood in Cape Town where the Coloured community lived prior to apartheid. The term Coloured is still in use today in South Africa to describe people who are neither Black nor White, who come from an ethnically diverse background.

Ernest recalls going to the National library in Cape Town to read the book recommended by Lipshitz, Paul Guillaume's "Primitive Negro Sculptures" (1929) and other books; that this awoken a desire in Ernest to see the European artists' works, particularly of Picasso, Braque and Matisse

Paul Guillaume's and Thomas Munro's "Primitive Negro Sculptures" (1929) was a highly influential book on Mancoba. It is his first formal exposure to art of the African continent. A later copy of the book is found in the family's archive and it could be said that Mancoba refers to the book when he speaks of African art.

[tape stopped and restarts] Wonga wants to know the impact of European art on Ernest as a black South African artist. Ernest explains his family believed that artists and poets had social responsibilities, that he wanted to be in the company of other artists for free exchange of ideas which was not possible in South Africa

Wonga asks how Ernest came to choose Paris? Ernest states that in South Africa his only opportunity was to be a maker of touristic folkloric objects; he reiterates his belief that separation of peoples and cultures can only lead to production of something singular of a quality only fitting for tourists and propaganda [multiple stops and restarts in this section]

[recording stopped]

[tape ends]