Miemie de Wit, interviewed by Helena Marincowitz, 1977: the death of Johannes Kleu at Remhoogte
interview · a living person's account · consulted 2026-09-07
- Type
- interview
- Repository
- Fransie Pienaar Museum, Prince Albert
- Reference
- Printed in SRC-172 at p.34, under 'Stories of the Anglo-Boer War (Personal interviews)'. Portrait on the same page, photo credited to Anna de Wit.
- Consulted
- 2026-09-07
The citation as it was given
THE ONLY EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF THE ONE WAR DEATH ON THIS GROUND, and it comes from inside the house. Miemie de Wit (PER-002051) was ten years old and living on Remhoogte when Johannes Kleu was carried in to die; she was 85 when she told it in 1977 and died the following year. Her father Roelof du Plessis (PER-002050) is the man who carried him. IT IS TESTIMONY AND IT IS GIVEN ITS OWN ROW because it is a different KIND of evidence from the book that prints it. SRC-172 is an authored local history; this is a remembered eyewitness account, recorded 76 years after the event by a named collector from a named witness. It is the strongest thing this project holds on the Remhoogte grave and it is still a memory: the age she gives for Kleu, 'about 22', is her father's recollection and disagrees with the eGGSA album's 22 only by accident of both being uncertain. WHAT ONLY SHE SUPPLIES: that the wounded Englishman shot Kleu at point blank range through the chest in Wolwekloof; that her father carried him in through the BACK door; that he was wearing a RED WAISTCOAT with his home address in the pocket; that the burial was at night and quiet; and that after the war her father SENT THE WAISTCOAT, with its bullet hole, to Kleu's parents at Aberdeen, who answered 'Let him rest.' THE WAISTCOAT IS THE PROVENANCE OF THE ABERDEEN ADDRESS. Every later account of this grave traces back through here.
Kept verbatim. This project contradicts published genealogies and corrects a family's own oral tradition, so every claim has to be checkable by someone who was not in the room.
What rests on this source
People
- Johannes Kleu (d. 1901, Remhoogte) about 1878 – 2 February 1901
- Roelof du Plessis (Remhoogte)
- Miemie de Wit (nee du Plessis) about 1891 – 1978
- Lenie du Plessis (Remhoogte)