Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa

"A stunning documentary, Soft Vengeance is as much about human behaviour as it is about history.” – NPR

As a young, white, Jewish man in South Africa, Albie Sachs was determined to help bring Apartheid to an end. A fierce advocate for equality, Sachs was subsequently jailed, put in solitary confinement, tortured, exiled, and the subject of an attempted assassination. When his friends promised to avenge him, Sachs resisted the idea: “if we achieve true freedom and democracy,” he said, “that will be my soft vengeance.”

This Peabody Award-winning documentary takes us into the remarkable life of a man who refused to ignore a systemic injustice. Sachs was one of the key figures in South Africa’s transformation, a man who stood by the conviction that reconciliation was more important than retribution, regardless of what he was put through.