“The Board and staff of the Nelson Mandela Foundation extend their sincere condolences to the Browde family on the death of Jules Browde,” said Sello Hatang, CEO of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Mr Browde met Nelson Mandela at Wits University. Browde later served as part of Mandela’s defence team in his trial and they continued to maintain contact with one another.
Mr Mandela recalled at the funeral of Joe Slovo in January 1995 how Mr Browde, with other student activists at the time, “would debate many issues well into the wee hours of the morning.”
Mr Mandela’s correspondence with Amina Cachalia, dated 27 July 1983 sheds further insights into his association with Mr Browde:
“I know Jules quite well, often think of him and I would only be too happy to hear from him. As a matter of fact, only the other day I discovered that he was now an acting judge, a position he more than deserves, I think.”
“It may be of interest to him that I spent 5 years with a medical student who he defended. That young man was full of praise for him as well as Selma who, I understand, lectured to him at the medical school. In fact, the young man was much impressed by Selma’s beauty as well as her wealth of medical knowledge. On the former aspect I instinctively remarked that: “She has no choice in the matter; she just has to be beautiful. She married an equally handsome man! My niece Judith, often tells me about both Jules and Selma and about all the nice things they are doing for her. What I did not even suspect was that you know them and then information came to me as a pleasant surprise”