23 Facts About Michael Harmel

Michael Alan Harmel OLG was a South African anti-apartheid activist, journalist and editor.

Michael Harmel was a political mentor and friend of Nelson Mandela.

Michael Harmel was honoured posthumously with the Order of Luthuli in 2013.

Michael Harmel was born in Doornfontein in Johannesburg to Irish Jewish immigrant parents.

Michael Harmel married Michael's grandmother, Hannah Deborah, from Leckava and with whom he had seven children and one adoptive daughter.

Michael's Irish-born father, Arthur Aaron Harmel trained as a pharmacist in Dublin and emigrated to South Africa in 1910.

Michael Harmel was then raised by his father and aunt in the Orange Free State town of Vrede.

Michael Harmel attended the primary school of Selborne College in 1923.

The family then relocated to Port Elizabeth and Michael Harmel began attending Grey High School in 1924, matriculating in 1932.

Michael Harmel enrolled for a BA in English literature and Economics at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.

Michael Harmel wrote poetry and literary reviews for The Rhodian, a bi-annual publication of submissions by Rhodes students.

Michael Harmel founded and edited the short-lived publication, The Adelphi, billed as "A South African Monthly Review of Literature, Public Affairs and The Arts".

In 1938, Michael Harmel returned to work at the Johannesburg newspaper, The Star, where he had worked in the winter vacation of the previous year.

Michael Harmel later left the country, relocating to London for fifteen months, where he joined the British Communist Party and was employed by their newspaper, the Daily Worker.

Michael Harmel joined the editorial board of Inkululeko, the communications organ of the party.

Michael Harmel then became involved with establishing the radical left-wing white, anti-apartheid organization, South African Congress of Democrats, which formed part of the Congress Alliance.

Michael Harmel continued in the role until the early 1970s.

Michael Harmel wrote Fifty Fighting Years, publishing it under the pen name, A Lerumo.

Michael Harmel wrote the novel in 1959, it examines the state of the world amid the Cold War.

Michael Harmel married Ray Michael Harmel in 1940, a fellow South African activist, with whom he had a daughter, Barbara.

Michael Harmel later entered into a relationship with an Irishwoman, Kathleen O'Callaghan.

Michael Harmel died of a cerebral haemorrhage in Prague on 18 June 1974.

Michael Harmel's ashes were scattered in a glade in Liboc-Vokovice in 2005.