Among the Boers in peace and war -Schroder-Nielson

2012 paperback brand new. 224 pages, R28 postage in SA.                                                Among the many little-known stories of the Anglo-Boer War is that of Ingvar Schrøder- Nielsen, a young Norwegian land-surveyor, who lived among the Boers and  described their ways with humour and empathy. He befriended a number of Boer families and writes with great sympathy about their often tragic plight.

Appalled by the destruction of farms by the British forces and the incarceration of civilians in the infamous concentration camps, he joined the Boer forces.  His descriptions of the military tactics, improvisations and onerous circumstances of the Boer fighters, and graphic details of epic battles such as those of Vlakfontein and Moedwil, vividly bring to life the people enmeshed in these conflicts.

Nielsen was captured and taken to a British camp where he witnessed the tragic execution of his comrade Piet Schuil, a young Hollander who had been sentenced to death on trumped-up charges. Nielsen’s poignant and moving account of his friend’s last hours is probably the only available record of this tragedy. Less sombre, even entertaining, are his descriptions of life in the prisoner-of-war camps on the Bermuda Islands, where Nielsen, himself having been threatened with execution, was to remain until his release in July 1902, when he returned to Norway.