Testimony of a Jewish - Breendonk camp inmate with portraits of inmates he painted in the camp - a copy with the ...

Testimony of a Jewish - Breendonk camp inmate with portraits of inmates he painted in the camp - a copy with the author's dedication.

BREENDONCK BAGNARDS ET BOURREAUX - Breendonk Conflict and Executioners by Jacques Ochs - Brussels 1947 - First Edition. Testimony of the Belgian Jewish swordsman Jacques Ochs - a prisoner of the Breendonk camp, and portraits of inmates he painted in the camp - a copy with the author's dedication:"A mon bon ami Gabriel Puaux J. OCHS".

The Author Jacques Oaks [1883-1971] Belgian-Jewish swordsman, Olympic champion (Stockholm 1912). In addition, he was a painter and cartoonist for the French daily La Figaro. During World War II after the German occupation of Belgium, Oaks was imprisoned in the Breendonk Fortress. During his stay in the camp, although he was in a state of exhaustion, he managed to paint portraits of his inmates, members of the camp. About two years after his release, the author brought in the book before us both the testimony about the years he was imprisoned in Breendonk, and the portraits of the prisoners he painted in the camp. In the introduction to the book, the author writes that he had a hard time deciding whether to write his testimony, because he was afraid of flooding back with him the difficult sights he had until he was a prisoner in Breendonk. But in the end he decided to write things down for future generations, and for the prisoners he painted who died. He was arrested in 1940 as director of the Academy of Arts in Liege on charges of publicly speaking out against Adolf Hitler, after a five-hour interrogation by Gestapo soldiers he was transferred to a dungeon in St. Leonard Prison. And from there was transferred to Breendonk. In his testimony, he describes in detail the forced labor at the construction sites around the camp, and the torture and suffering of the prisoners. In one place he concisely defines Breendonk: "Everywhere you look, kicks, belt buckles, protruding bones, swollen heads, broken teeth, dysentery, hunger, suicides, insanity - this is Breendonk." In the second part of the book 39 portraits of prisoners and scenes he painted in the camp, most of the cartoonists are prisoners who were found dead in Breendonk. In the body of the book when he describes the anguish he went through, Oaks tells about those prisoners, and wherever he refers to a particular prisoner he writes the number he mentions at the end of the book so that the prisoner's face can be seen about him giving his testimony. The paintings were painted by Oaks in the camp at the time of the incident, and they were miraculously saved until after the war. The process of printing and the manner in which the paintings in the book were brought from the original, were done under the personal supervision of the artist.

Breendonk was a fortified military base for the Belgian army between the cities of Antwerp and Brussels in Belgium. During the German occupation of Belgium during World War II, it served as a detention camp, where Jews from the Belgian community were also imprisoned. On September 20, 1940, the first prisoners arrived at the fort. Belgian communists, members of the underground, hostages captured by the Germans, Jews from the Belgian community and also criminals were imprisoned there. In the first year of the camp, the Jews had about half the population of its prisoners. They were held in it separately from the other prisoners. Among others, Rabbi Shlomo Ullman, the chief rabbi of the Belgian Jewish community, and the heads of the Belgian Jewish Association were imprisoned in the fortress. The prisoners stayed in the fort for an average of about three months before being sent to concentration camps in Germany, Austria and Poland. The prisoners suffered from harsh living conditions, starvation, deprivation of medical care and cruel treatment by the camp staff, and they were enslaved; The Germans also conducted interrogations, torture and executions by hanging. Various 'political' prisoners were interrogated in the camp under severe torture. The first German commander of the fort, Philip Schmitt, was prosecuted in Belgium in 1949, convicted, sentenced to death and executed in 1950.

85, 39 [1] pages. Thick paper. Very good condition.