In Conversation: John Krige and Maria Rentetzi

JOHN KRIGE: I was born in Cape Town to a mother who had married a man in Iraq.He was a British citizen who was exploiting oil in Iraq for the British government in the late 1930s.There was a great deal of unrest in Iraq because the Germans sent a Nazi to the embassy in Baghdad.They tried to encourage the Arab citizens of Iraq to rise up against the British so they could have access to the oil.There was a great deal of tension in Iraq at the time, in the late 1930s, and my..., her husband sent my mother out of the country for fear of violence.There was a massive Jewish pogrom in Baghdad, and he sent her out to South Africa.While she was in South Africa she gave birth to me, the product of an illicit relationship with a Frenchman.Due to their illicit relationship, she couldn't keep me.She put me up for adoption and at some point in this process, my adopting parents found me.I was in a convent with nuns and they adopted me.That's why I was born and brought up in South Africa by this strange historical circumstance.I grew up in Pretoria and went to the University of Pretoria when I was just 16 years old and began studying physical chemistry.I got a PhD.It's quick to get a PhD in the sciences.I was then employed by the South African Atomic Energy Board and sent abroad to train as a mass spectro-