Chapter 01: Family and Politics in South Africa
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Description
In this segment, Dr. Levin sketches his family life and the significance of South Africa’s apartheid system in his formative years. His parents owned a store and greatly valued education, encouraging both him and his brother, who went on to a distinguished career in nephrology and served as role model and mentor over the years. Dr. Levin notes that he “discovered he had a caring soul” in high school, considering both veterinary medicine and human medicine as professions. He also made up his mind very early that he would leave South Africa because of the political situation and apartheid. Dr. Levin notes that he went to a de-segregated medical school, but even there saw the effects of apartheid. He describes the effects, socially, and explains that any attempts to break barriers between the races was dangerous. Dr. Levin served as president of the student organization at his medical school and also as secretary of the Medical Students of South Africa, making statements against apartheid in both organizations. However, he had a “dire view” of the future that convinced him he would leave the country at some point.
Identifier
LevinB_01_20130207_C01
Publication Date
2-7-2013
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Bernard Levin, MD, Oral History Interview, February 07, 2013
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Personal Background Personal Background Character, Values, Beliefs, Talents Formative Experiences Human Stories Offering Care, Compassion, Help Cultural/Social Influences Inspirations to Practice Science/Medicine Influences from People and Life Experiences
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay, so we are recording. I’ll just note the time. I’m Tacey Ann Rosolowski, and today is the 7th of February, 2013, and I’m interviewing Dr. Bernard Levin for the Making Cancer History Oral History Project run by the Historical Resources Center at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Dr. Levin joined the MD Anderson faculty in 1984 as a professor of medicine. He served as Chair of the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology and Digestive Diseases until 1994, when he was appointed the first Vice-President for Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences. He retired from MD Anderson in November 2007 and now holds the title of Professor Emeritus. Do I have all that right?
Bernard Levin, MD:
Yes. My name is actually pronounced Leh-VEEN.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
It is. Okay. I’m very sorry.
Bernard Levin, MD:
That’s not a problem. It looks like Levin. It’s an old problem.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I bet there is. Well, people add an R to my name all the time, so I get called Tracey.
Bernard Levin, MD:
Yes, that’s right, they want to make it Tracey.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
They do. People see what they want.
Bernard Levin, MD:
Or they put an S in front.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
They do. There’s a whole collection of permutations. They usually get to Tacey last of all. All right, well, my apologies. So Dr. Levin—and this interview session is taking place at a hotel in New York City. This is the first of three planned interview sessions, and we’re formally starting at 9:47. Thank you, Dr. Levin, for participating in the oral history project.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I wanted to start with some general background questions. If you could tell me where you were born and when, and maybe a bit about your family background.
Bernard Levin, MD:
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1942 and grew up there and left there after completing a medical and surgical internship and a few months as a GP locum to come to the United States. My parents had a small store and sold new and used soft goods—blankets, coats, clothing of various kinds to retail merchants, both close by near Johannesburg in a gold mining areai— in what was then called Transvaal, now termed Gauteng,. And it was really quite a small operation. Both parents worked there, my mother serving as the bookkeeper/accountant, and my father as the buyer/traveling salesman/entrepreneur. He employed one or two clerical people and then several traveling salesmen at the height of the business, and also a driver or two used to ferry my father around. I grew up with that environment with two working parents. At some point, the business failed and my parents each had developed their own various careers. My father more or less in the same line of business but on a much smaller scale, and my mother worked as a bookkeeper for a newspaper.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
You mentioned the two working parents. Was that a significant influence for you do you think?
Bernard Levin, MD:
Yes, I think so. I think I was somewhat expected to fend for myself and develop independence at an early age, although they were very caring and loving parents, prizing education above all else. In fact, so much so that they moved their home and we lived in an area called Observatory, which was close to a real observatory. But we moved close to be near a Roman Catholic school, which, despite being Jewish, they felt was the best education they could provide. It was a private school called Marist Brothers’ College. I went to Marist Brothers for ten years. My brother, who is seven years older than I am, was a very formative influence in my life. He’s happily still alive and living in New York City. He was a very exceptional student and medical student ahead of me, and subsequent physician, and has made a very distinguished career in the field of nephrology.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And your brother’s name?
Bernard Levin, MD:
Nathan. He was an extremely positive influence for the most part except when we used to fight. But once I got big enough that ended.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
You would physically fight?
Bernard Levin, MD:
Physically fight, yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, wow, you were roll-around-on-the-floor-type guys.
Bernard Levin, MD:
He was always older, so he had an advantage. But then I grew to be bigger than he was, so that ended that phase. But he always was extremely helpful and positive.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And what was that support like?
Bernard Levin, MD:
I think, in a sense, paving the way. Neither of my parents were professionals. We had cousins who were physicians and an uncle who was a physician. So there were doctors in the family, but no one in the immediate family. And my brother did extremely well in medical school, was highly regarded by all, and I was always viewed as, “Well, he’s Nathan Levin’s brother,” which was both good and bad. They expected more of me because of that lineage. But I could also, I suppose, hide under that umbrella.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So when did you discover that you really had a gift for the sciences and for thinking about the caring arts?
Bernard Levin, MD:
I’m not sure I ever had a gift for the sciences, but I did have a caring soul. It was probably in early high school I was considering—probably what would be equivalent to ninth or tenth grade here—I was interested in veterinary medicine particularly and actual human medicine. Also, for a while, I thought about practicing law. But I talked to various people, went to hear trials and read about it and decided it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Veterinary medicine was very attractive to me. I was very interested in it. But I had already made up my mind that I was going to leave South Africa because of the political situation. And the only two veterinary schools in South Africa were both at Afrikaans speaking universities, Pretoria and Stellenbosch. And that seemed to be a limitation to exporting a skill to another country. And although I was fairly fluent in Afrikaans, it being the second language at the time, I thought it would be a limiting factor. So my choice, logically, came towards medicine, in which I was very interested.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Can you tell me a bit about how you viewed the political situation at the time, what your thinking was?
Bernard Levin, MD:
I was, perhaps by nature, very liberal and found apartheid abhorrent. I went to a non-segregated university and medical school, which was regarded by the then government in power as something of an anathema. And they were very opposed to any policies that allowed freedom or the equivalent of freedom for blacks and Indians. The policies were very distorted, for example, in that there could be very little social contact between people of opposite races, which was of course the policy of the country. But even more so within our particular environment, blacks could attend lectures and take part in all scholastic activities, but they couldn’t attend autopsies of white patients. They couldn’t attend to white patients in segregated hospitals, whereas whites could have freedom in all kinds of hospitals. And there were separate white hospitals and black hospitals and hospitals that tended to care more for people of mixed race—so called colored, mulattos, in an area where there were more people of that—so it was a really awful system. And attempts to break those barriers down were actually dangerous. I had good friends who were willing to do that. I, as a medical student, was president of the Medical Student Association and led attempts in a modest way to ensure that segregation didn’t have as much of an impact. But I would say in retrospect they were not overtly—not overt enough.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What were the kinds of activities that you supported?
Bernard Levin, MD:
Taking a stand against any kind of segregation. Making it clear that medical education should be available to all, irrespective of color or race or religion. Making that a policy and facilitating exchange of students where possible between different parts of South Africa. There was another organization called the Medical Students Association of South Africa, of which I was secretary. And trying to have a broader view of South Africa as a part of Africa, which was then being a very insular society. We campaigned against the segregation and policies of the University of Pretoria, which was only thirty-five miles away. And we had, as I recall, a fierce rivalry around the annual game of rugby. Several of us stole the trophy, so if they won we wouldn’t have to give it to them, which is maybe in retrospect rather infantile. We were subject to some ultra right-wing graffiti. I recall coming to the Student’s Medical Council office one day and finding pro-Nazi graffiti on the blackboard. So there were students, or others within the medical school, who didn’t view the liberal policies as appropriate. So I knew from a very early age that I was going to leave South Africa. I didn’t have an optimistic view of the future of South Africa as a liberal white. And I thought that at the very end, South Africa would eventually be ruled be an all-black majority, and I didn’t believe that necessarily whites would be tolerated very well because of all the iniquities they had inflicted on the blacks. Of course, in the passage of time, I did not foresee a Mandela or any of his protégés. I also was interested in research and found it to be difficult to gain research training in South Africa and to see a future for that kind of career. Though people were undoubtedly successful at it, and perhaps if I had been more persistent or more thoughtful about it, maybe I could have seen a way. But I didn’t.
Recommended Citation
Levin, Bernard MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 01: Family and Politics in South Africa" (2013). Interview Chapters. 1337.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1337
Conditions Governing Access
Open
