Page 24 - Dainfern Precinct Living Issue 4 May 2023

Book Reviews

Harry Oppenheimer

DIAMONDS, GOLD AND DYNASTY

By Michael Cardo
Harry Oppenheimer, the international
gold-and-diamond magnate, presided
over the corporate dynasty of Anglo
American and De Beers for more than
25 years. Famed for his wealth and his
companies’ economic power, he strad-
dles the history of 20th-century South
Africa like a colossus. Yet, two decades
after his death, the Oppenheimer em-
pire is no more. As the political opposi-
tion’s key financial backer, the founder
(along with Anton Rupert) of the Urban
Foundation after the Soweto uprising
in 1976, and a ubiquitous philanthro-
pist, Oppenheimer helped propel the
process of reform.
Nevertheless, in some quarters he is
demonised as the archetype of ‘white the oppressive racial order of the past.
monopoly capital’ and scapegoated, Cardo brings to life the places, people,
along with Nelson Mandela, for the events and relationships that shaped
country’s disappointing democratic div- Harry Oppenheimer’s long and rich
idends. In the first, full-scale biography career at the intersection of business
of Oppenheimer, based on unrestricted and politics. From the diamond fields
access to his subject’s private papers of Kimberley, where Harry’s father,
and extensive interviews with family Ernest Oppenheimer, arrived to seek his I am Ella
members and close associates, Michael fortune, through the heir’s long appren-
Cardo eschews both the corporate hype ticeship, to his emergence on the world
and the political propaganda to pro- stage as a magnate and ‘monarch’ in his
duce a vivid, fully rounded portrait. own right, Cardo traces the By Joan Jowell
evolution of a dynasty.
He tackles thorny questions of legacy Ella Blumenthal’s story of surviv-
and Oppenheimer’s complicity with Price: R360.00 ing the Holocaust and building
a new life in South Africa could
The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece easily be mistaken for fiction. From
the ashes of the Warsaw Ghetto
By Tom Hanks uprising to the fires of Majdanek,
Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz; from
A wildly ambitious story of the making the abandon of post-war Poland
of a colossal, star-studded, multimillion- to the refuge of Paris, Palestine
dollar superhero action film, and the and getting married and moving to
humble comic book that inspired it all. Johannesburg and eventually Cape
Town; from stateless refugee to dis-
Spanning 80 years and culminating placed immigrant, Ella’s 101 years
in the opening of the film, we meet a of life have been nothing short of
colourful cast of characters including herculean.
a troubled soldier returning from
war, a young boy with an artistic gift, Together with her niece Roma
an inspired and eccentric director, Rothstein, five years her junior, Ella
a pompous film star on the rise, a survived three concentration camps
tireless production assistant and before being liberated by the Brit-
countless film crew members that ish Army in 1945. They made their
together create Hollywood magic. way across Europe to join their
last surviving family member in
Funny, touching, and wonderfully DPL Palestine where Ella met the South
thought-provoking, the book offers African man she would marry after
an insider’s take on the momentous just thirteen days. She followed
efforts it takes to make a film. At Isaac Blumenthal to the tip of Africa
once a reflection on America’s past where they settled in Brakpan, out-
and present, on the world of show side Johannesburg where Ella and
business and the real world we all her husband built a business and
live in. raised their four children.

Price: R390.00 Price: R330.00
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