THANKS to a devastating fire in a August last year, another of Port Elizabeth’s fascinating secrets has been revealed.

The creator of a valuable and relatively unknown artwork on the side of the old Greatermans building at the corner of Kemp Street and Govan Mbeki Avenue, has been revealed as being Arthur Goldreich, co- founder of uMkhonto weSizwe (MK). He is the man who posed as Nelson Mandela’s employer at the time of the famous raid by the security police on MK’s secret headquarters in Rivonia on July 11, 1963.

Goldreich worked in the field of architectural and industrial design and was commissioned to create the unusual bas-relief artwork on the wall of the Greatermans building. The artwork was the first of its kind in Port Elizabeth and was quite controversial, being cast into polystyrene moulds in a process known as “shuttle concrete” on site when the building was under construction. It measures about three metres high by 50m long.

The year before he was arrested Goldreich was a frequent visitor to Port Elizabeth.

Barbara Robertson, widow of architect Ian Robertson – who worked for the firm Steenkamp, Harris and Partners, the firm responsible for the new building – remembers Goldreich’s visits to Port Elizabeth.

“I was still a young girl, about 18 years old. I remember going with Ian and Goldreich on their site visits.

“Goldreich flew down often, sometimes every week, and would go to inspect the progress with Ian. Goldreich loved Chinese food and he would often eat at the Silver Lantern in Evatt Street,” she said.

“The security police were watching every move Goldreich made, noting down in the most minute detail people and places he visited.

“One day they came into Ian’s office and wanted to interrogate him but the senior partner, Attie Harris, refused to allow them to interrogate him on the premises, so he had to go with them to the security police offices.

“Coincidentally, Steenkamp, Harris and Partners and the security police both had their offices in the Sanlam building (in Strand Street just around the corner).

“They knew exactly where Ian and Goldreich had been, what they had done and who they had met. They wanted to know why Ian had not told them about a place they had been to, so Ian said he had forgotten about it.

“Anyway, they never found anything and they left Ian alone.

“When the mural was revealed, the older architects generally thought it was too modern, but the hip people thought it was wonderful,” she said.

The building, which was sub-divided into smaller businesses, was badly damaged in August last year after fire broke out in the premises of one of the tenants, Mr Crazy, whose entrance was in Kemp Street. It smouldered for days before being put out, in the process doing irreparable damage to the structure. After being inspected by engineers, a decision was taken to demolish the building.

Until informed by The Herald, the building’s owner, Dr Suleman Bemath, did not know who the artist was. “Now that you have told us we hope it will be preserved and obviously, if we can, we’ll keep it as it is.

“I think it is a good tourist (attraction) and we could get a lot more feet coming into town because of it.

“I’m not an expert on demolition, but just by chance I asked (the engineers) to see if they can preserve (the mural),” he said.

Elwandle Projects civil structural engineer Esias Koen said: “We are definitely going to save the mural. We gave specific written instructions this morning to the contractor, Ross Demolition, to save it.

“The mural was made of concrete and there are no cracks in it except at the top. We’re talking about 20mm, where the fire got directly to it, but most of the wall is 100%. Luckily, on the inside face there’s a normal masonry brickwork wall and that protected the reinforced concrete wall from direct heat.

Goldreich, who was born in Johannesburg in 1929, started to study for a diploma in architecture at Wits University, but his studies were broken because he left to fight in the Israeli War of Independence. He did not complete the course.

He taught art for a while at Wits Tech Art School in Johannesburg and studied art under Victor Passmore in London at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1953.

Passmore was a leading figure in the promotion of abstract art, and pioneered the use of new materials, sometimes on a large architectural scale in the construction of reliefs.

Goldreich and his family returned to South Africa in 1954.

He was 33 then, and became one of the country’s most successful artists, winning the South African Best Young Painter Award for his figures in black and white.

In 1956 Goldreich drew a series of illustrations for Arthur Markowitz’s book about San myths and fables, With Uplifted Tongue.

Goldreich, with the help of attorney Harold Wolpe, used funds from the SA Communist Party to buy Liliesleaf, where the underground leadership of the banned ANC met in secret. The smallholding was the key location for the Rivonia Trial following the arrests of 19 ANC members and leaders, including Goldreich and Mandela.

Goldreich and Wolpe were responsible for helping locate industrial targets for MK, the ANC’s military arm, and drafted a disciplinary code for guerillas.

Considered to be “the arch-conspirator”, he infuriated the security police by escaping from Marshall Square police cells dressed in a cleric’s garb after bribing a young police guard with Wolpe, attorney Abdullay Jassat and Mosie Moolla.

The young policeman said he could not see Goldreich in his cell so he entered it. As he entered, he said, Goldreich knocked him unconscious with a blow to the back of his head with an iron bar.

He said his hands were tied with a curtain cord. When he came to the four prisoners had escaped.

They lay low in Johannesburg for a few days before Goldreich and Wolpe drove to Manzini, Swaziland.

Under the assumed names of the Rev Mitchell and the Rev Shipton of the Congregational Church, they knocked at the door of Anglican missionary the Rev Charles Hooper, and were given a few days’ accommodation. Hooper later said he had no idea who the two were.

Still disguised as clerics to avoid being identified, they were flown to Lobatsi, Botswana. From there, Fish Kiepeny drove them to Francistown.

An East African Airways Dakota was specially chartered to take the pair, plus a group of ANC refugees, to Dar-es-Salaam. Goldreich eventually made his way to Israel.

Commenting about the loss of their main suspect, Justice Minister BJ Vorster said: “It will be more or less like producing Hamlet without the Prince – but the show will go on just the same.”

After his daring prison escape, Goldreich returned to Israel where he became a leading figure at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem.

He headed the industrial and environmental design department in 1966 and helped transform it into an internationally recognised design centre. He was a professor there until he retired in 1999.

In 1961, he was the first South African artist to hold a one-man show in New York.