

Lizzie van Zyl (22 April 1894 – 9 May 1901) was a South African child inmate of the Bloemfontein concentration camp, who died from typhoid fever during the Second Boer War. == Background == Lizzie and her mother (Elizabeth Cecilia van Zyl) were inmates of the Bloemfontein concentration camp. They were labelled as 'undesirables', and placed on the lowest food rations because her father, Hermanus Egbert Pieter van Zyl, was still fighting the British. Activist Emily Hobhouse used her death as an example of the hardships the Boer women and children faced in the British concentration camps during the war. She describes Lizzie as "a frail, weak little child in desperate need of good care". Initially, the publishers of Hobhouse's reports refused to publish the photograph.Lizzie died in 1901 at seven years of age. == Photo == The photo of the emaciated van Zyl reportedly was passed from British author Arthur Conan Doyle, who served as a volunteer doctor during the Boer War, to Joseph Chamberlain. Both Doyle and Chamberlain were proponents of the Boer Wars; Doyle wrote a short work The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct, that justified the war. The photo was used as propaganda, to convince the British public that Boer children were neglected by their parents. The image was released with the detail that it was taken when van Zyl and her mother entered the camp. SOURCESWikipedia