The World that was Ours (1967) is Hilda Bernstein's personal account of life in Johannesburg under the oppressive surveillance of the apartheid regime.

Upon their release, Rusty was placed under house arrest, while Hilda's day-to-day activities were closely monitored by the Special Branch, if not altogether prohibited.

While on the one hand The World that was Ours offers vivid historical insight into the tumultuous climate of Johannesburg in the early 1960s, on the other it reads as a poignant and emotional recollection of the narrator's personal dilemmas, as a mother, a wife and a political activist, torn between her private and public responsibilities.

'This has survived as a South African classic,' wrote Anthony Sampson in the Spectator, 'not just because it's beautifully written, but because it conveys the combination of ordinariness and danger which is implicit in any totalitarian state.'

The World that was Ours is dedicated to 'the men of Rivonia' - Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Denis Goldberg, Govan Mbeki, Elias Motsoaledi, Andrew Mlangeni and Rusty Bernstein - as well as to their devoted counsel, Bram Fischer.