August is a time to honour South African women’s role in dismantling apartheid.
On 9 August 1956, over 20 000 women of all races marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, protesting the oppressive pass laws. This powerful act of defiance became a turning point in the fight for justice – not just against apartheid, but for women’s broader emancipation.
In times of hardship, it is often women who find the strength to rise and resist. One such woman, whose story deserves far more recognition, is Claude Cahun – born Lucy Schwob – a French Jewish artist and fierce non-conformist. I heard about her recently, and thought I should share the tale with you.
Cahun lived a radical life, challenging gender norms and beauty ideals and, in all likelihood, maintaining a same-sex relationship with lifelong partner Marcel Moore. At a time when such relationships were taboo, simply living authentically was an act of courage.
But her bravery reached extraordinary heights during World War II. In 1937, she and Moore moved to Jersey in the Channel Islands. When the Nazis occupied the island in 1940, the two middle-aged women launched a covert resistance campaign. Disguising their identities, they distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, banners and notes – many appearing to come from German soldiers – urging residents not to give in to Fascist rule.
One of their most provocative messages, displayed in a church, read: “Jesus is great, but Hitler is greater – because Jesus died for people, but people die for Hitler.”
In 1944, they were arrested, tried, and sentenced – Cahun to death plus two six-month prison terms. When told her sentence, she reportedly asked defiantly in which order they would be carried out. In a similar rebellious vein, right up to the end, she told the German judge she should be shot twice – once as a resistor, once as a Jew.
Though the war ended before the sentence was enforced, Cahun’s health was permanently damaged by her imprisonment. She died in the 1950s, aged just 60.
This Women’s Month, let’s remember not only those who marched on South African soil, but also women like Claude Cahun – brave, defiant, and largely forgotten. Their stories remind us that resistance takes many forms, and that courage often comes in quiet, uncelebrated ways.
Recent years have seen greater interest in the Cahun-Moore story, and stolpersteine (concrete cubes carrying brass plates inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution). have now been put in place on the pavement outside their house in Jersey. Their tombstone stands out for being marked as the grave(s) of two Jewish people, although Moore was not Jewish by birth or conversion.
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