“I approached my bungalow during the shelling someone was throwing something burning out the window. I thought: ‘There’s a fire. Let me rush in and help.’ As I ran in through the door I slipped. I skidded through a pool of blood and landed on a youngster who had lost both legs. Both had been blown off, ‘Jonny boy’ we called him” he tells me with a rye smile.
“I landed on top of him,” his eyes trail away from me “and all I remember was his face and that all he was saying: ‘Help me! Help me!’ After that I remember standing up, being soaked in his blood, it dripping of my hands, and going to the door. I stood with my head against the door after seeing the carnage around me, there was no good I could do that day. I remember looking around and seeing legs and blood. It was devastating.”
“All the guys standing around when the mortar hit lost their legs and three guys got killed. One guy, ou ‘Boetman’, who got killed was a South African champion boxer. He was lying on his bed reading the Bible and a piece of shrapnel went through his lungs and killed him,” says Johannes, “The wounded were rushed off to hospital, but there were no doctors on duty at the time. As bits and pieces of bodies and legs were carried in the nurses were terrified as they had never seen mutilation like this.”
“That event had such a profound effect on me. I can’t remember how long I stood against that door. And then the guys came to take me to hospital because I was in shock. I will never forget.”
Johannes who was 18 at the time – but a young man; experienced many things, much of which he and people like him do not speak of today.
On this day June the 16th, it is “Youth Day” we are then flooded with images of this day in 1976, Hector Pieterson being the posterchild. I cannot help but wonder if we will remember OUR youth who sacrificed their lives for “Volk en Vaderland” – Will we honour this day, June the 16th, to remember those young men?
Will we rework this day and make it our own, just as they have taken away a holy day, “Geloftedag” and turned it into “The day of Reconciliation”?
Regardless of what was fought for, stories are what have been left behind. It is our duty to know these stories, lest our actions become nothing more than shadows and dust.
I call to you! Use this day to remember Johannes, ‘Boetman’ and ‘Jonny Boy’; remember their sacrifice!
Front Nasionaal Jeug / Front National Youth
South Africa Today – South Africa News
