The Secret

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When a public health emergency are asked to look at Nathan Romburgh and his sisters, in the History of her family, decades after the end of Apartheid , they discovered a closely guarded secret, that the Question of their own identity.

Cape Town , 29 September, 1969 - at 10 a.m., The City is shaken by a large earthquake. Margaret Buirski, he is as a First aid nurse in the Alhambra cinema and, for once, their medical skills, really. A woman fell from The Balcony and Margaret tend to their injuries in the chaos.

drunk, A young man who is passing by, and noticed The Nurse , the well-shaped legs. Despite his drunkenness, he offers to drive The Women to the hospital. This is the beginning of The Romance between Margaret and Derek Romburgh.

Margaret in her nurse uniform in front of a St John's ambulance "We always say that you met during an earthquake, and from there worked up to a crescendo," says Nathan Romburgh, 42, her youngest child. He describes his mother as "a character". "You could talk to, in every job, And Then directly back out," he says.

The Marriage was not a happy. Derek continued to drink, and they had very little money. Margaret dealt with it by creating A Fantasy world, tell The Children you need to do to be rich, have a mortgage, and that you have to install an Elevator in your house. The Children never Knew what To Believe .

"it was a Fanta," says Nathan. "I think it is part of dealing with a difficult Life , you have stories in your head - and we just discount grew those. "

"it was a bit of a Compulsive Liar ," explains Bernadette, Nathan's oldest sister. "We never Knew if it was true - I'm not sure that she Knew also. "

The Children - Bernadette, Shereen, and Nathan Knew very little about her mother, the past, and never met their adoptive family. She had been adopted as a baby of pious Orthodox Jews, who died when she was a teenager. The rest of The Family disowned when she married Derek, a non-Jew.

Margaret's adoptive father died when she was a teenager, in Spite of this, Margaret had always clung proudly to their Jewish identity.

"We had a bit of a strange Life , Growing Up , because My Mother is Jewish and My Father was not was," says Nathan. "For Passover, we would be fasting and Nothing leavened shall eat, and in The Middle of my dad bringing home hot cross buns. "

Nathan had a difficult relationship with his mother, and when her parents divorced in 1991, he decided To Live with her instead of with his fathers grandparents.

"There's no sugar coating - she was a terrible mother," he says.

Bernadette, Nathan and Shereen and her parents died of A Family wedding Three years later, when Margaret cancer on the breast, she made an announcement: she had a sister. Your children dismiss stories as just another one of your invented.

The Years passed, And Then , in 2008, Bernadette breast cancer got, also.

Genetic tests showed that Bernadette cancer was the same type as your mother, even though The Mutations are sitting on the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes - one that occurs more frequently in the Ashkenazi Jewish community than in the rest of the population.

"scared us a lot," says Nathan. "We have decided that we need to know really, a bit more about our commitment to the things of My Mother 's genes. "

So, while Bernadette focuses on getting through the treatment, Nathan and his sister, Shereen set to learn more about the History of their family.

Bernadette, Nathan and Shereen at Nathan 's wedding, The First thing they did was to request Margaret's birth certificate. It took several months to arrive But when it did, it contained a big surprise: they learned that their mother was the mother of Mary Magdalene, Francis, a name that hardly Catholic.

"We have noticed that my grandmother is not Jewish," says Nathan.

It was a secret, and invited to deepen further.

Nathan living in London by then, so he asked his sister Shereen phone to any Francis in the Cape Town phone book.

"The fourth call, hit paydirt - did you know that my birth grandmother," he says.

After several more phone calls to potential relatives around The World , Nathan Francis said to Alan, then living in Spain.

"Um, I think we might be related," he began.

"We always Knew it was a scandal!", Alan's was the immediate answer.

"for my whole Life , I Knew it was a skeleton in the closet, But nobody would Say Anything ," says Alan, 77.

"Aunt Mary always said to me: 'I'll tell you on my deathbed. "But you never did, bless. "

Mary Magdalene, Francis, had died of stomach cancer in 1998, four years after their daughter had died of breast cancer.

, And Nathan discovers that his mother had told The Truth , After All , she had a sister. Her name was Norma . But they, too, had died - of colon cancer in 2006.

Alan filled Nathan what he Knew .

Mary and her baby, Norma had moved in with Alan's family in the year 1949, when he was seven, he said. Mary had lost her job and her parents were no longer alive, so she took refuge with her brother, Alan's father.

Alan Knew that Mary had married and pregnant by Her Boss , a doctor with young children of his own, But he always had the feeling it was more to the story - he remembers the quiet conversations behind closed doors.

Norma with Alan Francis parents For Nathan, it was disappointing to discover, when it was already Too Late , especially since it turned out that he had lived just down The Road from his aunt Norma in London.

Mary had moved to the UK and married later in Life . Now, armed with her married name, Nathan, UK-entries for Mary 's death certificate, and Norma was looking for.

That was when he made a shocking discovery: his aunt Norma and his mother's birthday.

added to The mystery of Mary to her grave was that she had brought Twins to The World - But only one.

"Then there was this big Question - what would make someone a gift, only one of your Twins ? It simply makes no sense," says Nathan.

He formed soon a Theory - it had been divided on the basis of the photographs of Alan, which showed that Margaret, she was more beautiful than her sister, Norma .

"My Mother had skin olive oil, But it was enough for a white person in Apartheid South Africa ," says Nathan. "I don't think that Norma could have. "

Although Mary Francis , Nathan's grandmother, was registered as "European", she was in fact mixed-race. Mary 's father, James Francis , was an Englishman, and her mother, Christina, was of Malaysian origin, from The Island of St. Helena. Mary was the youngest of their six children.

James Francis , with his wife, Christina Leonora and three of their children - maybe Nora, Percival, and Mary (on Christina's lap), Since The First arrival of early colonizers, mixed-race relationships had occurred in South Africa , Dutch settlers had brought The Family with the local Khoisan and Xhosa women, and women from Malaysia or St Helena, some of them were already over, as slaves.

But after the National Party came to power in 1948, were adopted the laws, such relationships are illegal.

The prohibition of mixed marriages act prohibited marriage between "Europeans" and "non-Europeans" and the law was on 8. July 1949 - a month before The Twins were born.

The population registration and immorality acts of 1950 went on, the prohibition of sexual relations between people of different races, and the requirement that all register as a member of the three racing classes: "Black" (African), "White" (Europeans), "Colored". Later, a fourth, "Indians" shall be added to, was.

the racial classifications were is often decided on the basis of photos or superficial observations, including The Infamous "pencil test", in which a pencil in someone's Hair when she shook her head and The Pencil fell, they were classified as white, But if you were there, you were not.

But people of mixed race could look very different, even within the same family.

"Cape Coloured person can be everything from very pale with green eyes, someone who is pretty dark," says Nathan.

It is impossible to know how the turbulence of the early Apartheid influenced Mary , But it is likely that it had some influence on what happens to their babies. She held The Twin who would have been classified as "Colored", and gave away The Twins , who looked "White".

maybe she had no choice in The Matter - maybe the Jewish family is, the adopted Margaret not rejected you, Norma , because you want a child who looked different to you. Or maybe they only wanted One Child , not two.

But Nathan believes that Mary thought that she, Margaret, had offered the chance for a better Life .

"If you are a woman of color, and she had two babies, one of which was white, I could see that it is quite possible and actually pretty likely that, if you gave her white baby-would you do it for altruistic reasons," he says.

apartheid, relationships, long reads, adoption, south africa, race and ethnicity

Source of news: bbc.com