Escape To Africa
Henri Diamant
Escape To Africa
Henri Diamant
Apprentice House
Loyola University Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland
Copyright © 2011, 2013 by Henri Diamant
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-934074-68-8
E-book ISBN: 978-1-934074-10-7
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher (except by reviewers who may quote brief passages).
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition, revised
Cover photo by Harry Diamant
Book cover and internal design by Alexandra Attanasio
E-book by Allison Focella
Published by Apprentice House
Apprentice House
Communication Department
Loyola University Maryland
4501 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210
410.617.5265
410.617.2198 (fax)
www.ApprenticeHouse.com
Map of Belgian Congo
1. Stanley Pool
2. Stanleyville
3. Livingstone Rapids
4. Leopoldville
5. Port Francqui
6. Luluabourg
7. Jadotville
8. Elisabethville
9. Lusambo
Foreword
The decision to write this memoir was motivated by several factors, two of which were truly vital and should be mentioned here.
The first one came by way of our daughter Michele. Her interest in family roots, and her intense curiosity about my years in Africa, became the most compelling arguments for this work.
The second is linked to our 2005 European trip. My wife Leila and I went there for a reunion of cousins (on Grandma’s Soffer side of the family) near Vienna, Austria, and for a visit to the Czech Republic. During the reunion, I heard more about the Diamant/Soffer history than I had ever been exposed to before. And that made me realize that I needed to leave some kind of legacy for posterity. By the way, our reunion might as well have been held at the UN, considering all the various languages that were used between us; Czech, German, Yiddish, Hebrew and English. Spanish and French were not represented because cousins from Chile and France could not make it to Austria.
I should also mention that the journey through the Czech Republic became, quite unexpectedly, an unquestionable emotional experience. I was much surprised at the depth of my feelings when, after almost 70 years, I saw once again our Grandparents’ homes in Kravsko and Lostice. That clinched it, and I started writing the minute I returned home.
01. Congo, The Ultimate Destination
I was eight years old in 1938 when our parents told us, my older brother Harry and me, that we were going to leave our home in Brno (Czechoslovakia at the time, Czech Republic today) and move to some country called Romania. I had never heard of Romania, and could not grasp why we were suddenly leaving our relatives and friends, and moving far away from home. But several weeks later I overheard our parents deliberating about lost passports, a missed opportunity in Romania and father’s acceptance of a position in Africa. Now that really made me sit up and take notice. All I had to hear was the name of that mysterious and thrilling continent and, just like that, my reluctance to leave friends and family vanished in a flash. And, while I will give further on more details about the strange set of circumstances that led us to Africa, I think it appropriate to disclose right now the thoughts that popped into my young mind the minute I heard about our impending move to the “Dark Continent”.
Mystifying AFRICA...Wow, and triple wow, I just could not believe that I was destined to live on the African Continent. How lucky can a guy get. After all, that mysterious continent was synonymous with adventure, pygmies, jungles and pets. And not just any pets, but the exotic, fascinating and wonderful pets of the Rain Forest. The proof of all this could be readily seen in every Tarzan movie that was ever made. Just think of that everlasting bond between Tarzan and Cheetah. For me, a kid who always fantasized about animals, travel, and adventure in exotic lands, this was the ultimate prospect of things to come, of dreams merging into reality. And so, I started at once to collect silver foil candy wrappers, since I knew for a fact that this was by far the top currency in Africa (I read all about it in one of my adventure books). And although I could not even guess as to how much foil was required to get a couple of chimps, I felt deep down that it had to be quite a lot. Wonderful pets like chimps and monkeys do not come cheap. But as I pondered about all this, I suddenly had two contrasting thoughts. The first one was quite tempting because it urged me to consume large quantities of candies in order to accumulate a good hoard of those precious foil wrappers. But the flip side hinted that over-eating candies usually brought on the misery of indigestion. However, in the scheme of things, this was a small “sacrifice” to pay and I quickly put my plan into action, just like any other eight year old boy would have done under the same circumstances. By the way, my name is Henri, or Jindrich in Czech.
My very active imagination started to work overtime when I learned that we were actually on our way to the Belgian Congo, a country deep in the very heart of Africa. It is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but it had two prior names in the recent past. At independence, in that momentous year of l960, it was The Republic of the Congo. But in 1971, for the sake of something called “National Authenticity”, President Joseph Desire Mobutu, changed it to the “Republic of Zaire” (which is, the native name for the Congo River). He also replaced some of the colonial-era names; Leopoldville, the capital, became Kinshasa, Elisabethville became Lubumbashi, etc (I will be using the colonial-era names, but the current names will appear in a comparison chart at the end of this memoir). He even altered his own title to “President Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngwendu Wa Za Banga “, a title that did not bode well for the future. It translates as “The all-powerful Warlord who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake”. In the end, his dictatorship brought only death, misery and poverty to a country that should have had a bright destiny.
In 1973, Mobutu took other steps. He nationalized many of the large enterprises owned by European Expatriates, and arranged for Zairien managers to take full control of these companies. He did all this, the name changes and the nationalization of large properties, in a desperate attempt to unify a country with no sense of nationhood, a country that was still divided by strong tribal allegiances. Prior to European encroachments, nationhood was an unknown concept, and it did not help, when Congo was carved out of south central Africa in the late eighteen hundreds, that no consideration was given to social, ethnic, or tribal boundaries. By the way, this particular region, largely unexplored until the early 1900’s, was eventually found to be an inhospitable place with an extremely unhealthy climate and deadly tropical diseases.Plus, if that wasn’t enough to keep you away, there were many vivid reports about cannibalism and other gruesome customs. However, there were also persistent rumors of vast mineral