He suffered from epilepsy which was ill understood at that time, eventually receiving treatment from Dr. Max Joffe; also a Zionist.
Hymie became progressively more involved in the Youth Liberation Movement and began working as an organizer and then Secretary of the Friends of the Soviet Union (FSU).
After the war, Hymie married Esther Levin on 4 December 1945, another Litvak who had been born in Raguva, Lithuania.
This organization that was partly led and created by the Barsels is now accorded a National Holiday in the new South Africa.
Esther was left behind to care for the three children – Sonya, then 8 years old, Linda, then 5, and the baby – Merle, aged 8 months.
Eventually the South African Government withdrew charges against Hymie on 20 April 1959 after having subjected him to torture, solitary confinement and other pernicious forms of severe punishments.
[3] Esther was sentenced to three years hard labor, with a banning order upon her release from Women's Prison, while Hymie was acquitted.
The tactics used by BOSS, especially during frequent States of Emergency, were closer to the fascistic brutality reported by survivors of death camps and gulags than accepted strategies employed by the civilized world.
The notable exception was one unit of Hymie's family: his mother, Faiga, his sister, Chana [Anne] and her husband, Yudel (Jules) Price.
He is featured on a postage stamp issued jointly by Liberia, Gambia and Sierra Leone that notes him as one of the Legendary Heroes of Africa.