Historical Organization
Pollsmoor Prison
Pollsmoor Prison
Details
Organization Timeline
Mandela and three comrades are transferred to Pollsmoor Prison
📅 31 March 1982Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Raymond Mhlaba, and Andrew Mlangeni were transferred from Robben Island to Pollsmoor Prison on the Cape Town mainland. The move ended Mandela’s 18 years on the island but did...
Winnie visits Mandela at Pollsmoor
📅 24 April 1982Mandela’s prison diary records Winnie visiting him at Pollsmoor with journalist Allister Sparks, who was not allowed to enter. The visit followed his transfer from Robben Island and shows the...
Helen Suzman visits Mandela and his comrades
đź“… 1 July 1983Liberal opposition MP Helen Suzman visited Mandela and his fellow Rivonia prisoners at Pollsmoor. Her access gave an outside witness a view into imprisonment, while the apartheid government still...
Prison authorities tell Mandela his nephew wants to visit
đź“… 28 February 1984A prison official informed Mandela that his nephew, Kaiser Daliwonga Matanzima, wanted to visit. The diary entry captures how even a family visit depended on official permission and could become a...
The International Committee of the Red Cross visits Mandela at Pollsmoor
đź“… 4 September 1984A delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross visited Mandela at Pollsmoor. The visit brought an international humanitarian body into a prison system whose conditions the apartheid...
Botha offers Mandela conditional release
đź“… 31 January 1985State President P. W. Botha offered Mandela release if he unconditionally renounced violence as a political instrument. Earlier offers had linked freedom to accepting the bantustan system or...
Zindzi reads Mandela’s refusal of conditional release at Jabulani Stadium
📅 10 February 1985At a United Democratic Front rally in Soweto, Zindzi Mandela publicly read her father’s response to Botha’s offer. Mandela rejected a personal release that required him to renounce the ANC’s political...
Mandela returns to Pollsmoor and is held apart from his comrades
đź“… 23 November 1985After leaving hospital, Mandela was returned to Pollsmoor and held in a cell alone. The Nelson Mandela Foundation chronology records that he began communicating with the government about eventual...
Mandela is taken to the Pollsmoor gardens
📅 12 January 1986A prison officer drove Mandela to Pollsmoor’s gardens, where he spent an hour looking at fields. The Foundation’s diary-based record preserves a small, ordinary moment inside a life governed by...
Mandela consults his lawyer George Bizos at Pollsmoor
đź“… 1 February 1986Mandela held a three-hour legal consultation with advocate George Bizos at Pollsmoor. The consultation shows the continuing legal dimension of imprisonment and the role of lawyers in maintaining...
Attorney Himie Bernardt visits Mandela
📅 3 March 1986Attorney Himie Bernardt visited Mandela at Pollsmoor. The diary-based Foundation entry records the visit as part of the prison’s tightly managed access regime. Lawyers and visitors could carry...
MPs Helen Suzman and Tian van der Merwe visit Mandela
đź“… 6 May 1986Members of Parliament Helen Suzman and Tian van der Merwe visited Mandela at Pollsmoor. Such visits could expose aspects of prison treatment to public scrutiny, although visiting politicians had...
Mandela holds his first meeting with Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee about talks
đź“… 20 July 1986Mandela met Justice Minister Kobie Coetsee to discuss talks between the government and the ANC. Mandela had insisted that negotiations could not be a private settlement over his own sentence: the...
Mandela spends the afternoon speaking with Ahmed Kathrada
đź“… 6 December 1986Mandela spent an afternoon in conversation with Ahmed Kathrada at Pollsmoor. They had been comrades for decades and had been transferred together from Robben Island. Their conversation represents...
Mandela takes his first supervised drive through Cape Town in 22 years
đź“… 24 December 1986Deputy prison commander Gawie Marx invited Mandela to see Cape Town. Mandela later described the drive as a striking encounter with ordinary life after decades of confinement; at one point Marx left...
Mandela spends a full day with his fellow Rivonia prisoners
📅 26 December 1986Authorities allowed Mandela to spend the day with Ahmed Kathrada, Walter Sisulu, Andrew Mlangeni, and Raymond Mhlaba at Pollsmoor. Their reunion restored a measure of camaraderie after Mandela’s...
Mandela turns 70 as the government restricts public commemorations
📅 18 July 1988Mandela’s 70th birthday was marked by campaigns and rallies in many countries. In South Africa, authorities restricted outdoor celebrations and increased controls around Pollsmoor and Black townships....