Jacques Ochs
Encyclopedia
Jacques Ochs was a Jewish Belgian artist
and épée and foil
fencer
.
Ochs volunteered for the army in World War I
, and was seriously injured in an air attack.
In 1920 he became a professor of painting at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Liège, and in 1934 he was appointed Director of the city's Musée des Beaux Arts.
He was Champion of Belgium in fencing in 1912.
Ochs was a member of the Belgian fencing team at the 1912 Stockholm
Olympics, and won a gold medal
in the team épée event (his teammates included Gaston Salmon
). Ochs also competed in 3 individual events. In the individual foil and individual épée, he reached the 2nd round before being eliminated (he finished 39th in foil, and 29th in épée. Ochs's final event was individual sabre, but he was eliminated in the 1st round.
He was World Champion in fencing in 1914.
, and a satirical magazine published in Brussels called Pourquoi Pas? (Why Not?). He at the same time worked at the newspapers “Newspaper of Liege”, “Small Parisian”, and “the Belgian Nation.”
on his head and a sceptre in the form of a headless Jew. An artist with right-wing tendencies who envied Ochs' success informed on him, and Ochs was arrested at the academy in Liège on 17 November 1940.
A month later, on 17 December, Ochs was imprisoned in the Breendonk
camp, to the south of Antwerp on the Brussels-Antwerp highway. The camp's prisoners suffered starvation, grass eating, tortures, hangings, and shootings. http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:kivog-AgwdYJ:www.tartanplace.com/tartanhistory/concentrationcamps.html+Philip+Schmitt+breendonck&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=17&gl=us Since September 20, Breendonk had been used as a police internment camp holding mostly political prisoners and foreign Jews before their transport to Germany. Ochs used caricature
to document the life there, drawing portraits of his fellow inmates on paper. When the commandant, Sturmbannführer Philipp Schmitt , who was very proud of "his" camp, became aware of Ochs' artistic talents, he ordered him to make him drawings of the camp and its inmates – a gallery of victims. Among them was a portrait of Antwerp's shochet (Jewish ritual slaughterer). Immediately after his arrival, Breziner's hair had been shaved off, and he looked humiliated.
Ochs was obliged to obey the demands of the SS, but tried to ease the suffering of his fellow inmates. He would drag out their portrait "sittings" to provide them with as much rest as possible. Professor Paul Lévy, who today serves as the president of the Mémorial National du Fort de Breendonk, and was interned with Ochs, has said that although the inmates did not have mirrors, they knew what they looked like through Ochs' works.
A Flemish
SS man who had known Ochs previously succeeded in smuggling him out of the camp in February 1942. This same man was also able to smuggle out some of the drawings Ochs had made for Commandant Schmitt.
In 1944 Ochs was re-arrested and interned again, along with his sister, in Mechelen transit camp
. He continued to draw and managed to avoid deportation through a "medical" opinion confirming he had been baptised as a Protestant, and so could not be Jewish. He was liberated from the camp by the British forces.
SS-Sturmbannführer Schmitt, the commandant of Breedonck camp and, later, of Mechelen transit camp, was tried in Antwerpen in 1950 and sentenced to death. He was the only SS man sentenced in Belgium, and his was the last execution before the country abolished the death penalty.
After the war Ochs returned to work as a lecturer in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and even though his sight had been damaged during his internment, he continued to paint and draw. In 1948 he became a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts de Belgique [The Royal Academy of Science, Literature and Art in Belgium] and a member of the Commission d'Achat des Musées Royaux d'Art Moderne [Acquisitions Commission of the Royal Museums of Modern Art].
He exhibited in many exhibitions, among them group exhibitions of the "Circle of Fine Arts", and a retrospective exhibition was also held for him. Ochs received many awards in recognition of his artistic talents, among them a gold medal at the second Biennale in Menton [Médaille d'or de la deuxième Biennale de Menton] in 1953, and a gold medal for art, science and letters in Paris [Médaille d'or des Arts, Sciences et Lettres, Paris] in 1959.
A number of his drawings from Mechelen were donated to the art collection of Beit Lohamei Haghetaot (the Ghetto Fighters' House
Museum)http://www.gfh.org.il/Eng/Index.asp?ArticleID=29&CategoryID=62&Page=1 by Irène Awret, who was interned with him in this camp.
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and épée and foil
Foil (fencing)
A foil is a type of weapon used in fencing. It is the most common weapon in terms of usage in competition, and is usually the choice for elementary classes for fencing in general.- Components:...
fencer
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
.
Early years, and art study
Ochs was Jewish, and was born in Nice, France. His family moved to Liège, Belgium, in 1893. Ochs studied art there at the Royal Academy of Art in Liège, graduating 1903. He won the Donnay Prize that year. Afterwards, he continued his studies at the Académie Julian in Paris until 1905.Ochs volunteered for the army in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and was seriously injured in an air attack.
In 1920 he became a professor of painting at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Liège, and in 1934 he was appointed Director of the city's Musée des Beaux Arts.
Fencing career
In addition to being a gifted artist, he was an Olympic fencing champion.He was Champion of Belgium in fencing in 1912.
Ochs was a member of the Belgian fencing team at the 1912 Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
Olympics, and won a gold medal
Gold medal
A gold medal is typically the medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture...
in the team épée event (his teammates included Gaston Salmon
Gaston Salmon
Gaston Salmon was a Belgian épée, foil, and sabre fencer. He was Jewish.-Olympic fencing career:Salmon represented Belgium at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, competing in three events, winning a gold medal in team épée....
). Ochs also competed in 3 individual events. In the individual foil and individual épée, he reached the 2nd round before being eliminated (he finished 39th in foil, and 29th in épée. Ochs's final event was individual sabre, but he was eliminated in the 1st round.
He was World Champion in fencing in 1914.
Art and caricature
He was also a caricaturist, who published his sketches, illustrations, and caricatures in various newspapers including the French daily, Le FigaroLe Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
, and a satirical magazine published in Brussels called Pourquoi Pas? (Why Not?). He at the same time worked at the newspapers “Newspaper of Liege”, “Small Parisian”, and “the Belgian Nation.”
Arrest and Internment
In early April 1938, Ochs, who was himself Jewish, depicted Hitler on the cover of Pourquoi Pas? with a swastikaSwastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
on his head and a sceptre in the form of a headless Jew. An artist with right-wing tendencies who envied Ochs' success informed on him, and Ochs was arrested at the academy in Liège on 17 November 1940.
A month later, on 17 December, Ochs was imprisoned in the Breendonk
Breendonk
Breendonk is a small town in Belgium, population 3,000, halfway between Brussels and Antwerp.Its name stems from the medieval Bredene Dunc which translates as "wide mound" or "a dry spot in the marshes."...
camp, to the south of Antwerp on the Brussels-Antwerp highway. The camp's prisoners suffered starvation, grass eating, tortures, hangings, and shootings. http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:kivog-AgwdYJ:www.tartanplace.com/tartanhistory/concentrationcamps.html+Philip+Schmitt+breendonck&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=17&gl=us Since September 20, Breendonk had been used as a police internment camp holding mostly political prisoners and foreign Jews before their transport to Germany. Ochs used caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
to document the life there, drawing portraits of his fellow inmates on paper. When the commandant, Sturmbannführer Philipp Schmitt , who was very proud of "his" camp, became aware of Ochs' artistic talents, he ordered him to make him drawings of the camp and its inmates – a gallery of victims. Among them was a portrait of Antwerp's shochet (Jewish ritual slaughterer). Immediately after his arrival, Breziner's hair had been shaved off, and he looked humiliated.
Ochs was obliged to obey the demands of the SS, but tried to ease the suffering of his fellow inmates. He would drag out their portrait "sittings" to provide them with as much rest as possible. Professor Paul Lévy, who today serves as the president of the Mémorial National du Fort de Breendonk, and was interned with Ochs, has said that although the inmates did not have mirrors, they knew what they looked like through Ochs' works.
A Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
SS man who had known Ochs previously succeeded in smuggling him out of the camp in February 1942. This same man was also able to smuggle out some of the drawings Ochs had made for Commandant Schmitt.
In 1944 Ochs was re-arrested and interned again, along with his sister, in Mechelen transit camp
Mechelen transit camp
The Mechelen transit camp, or officially SS-Sammellager Mecheln in German, was a detention and deportation camp established in the Dossin, the oldest casern at Mechelen, by the Nazi German occupier of Belgium...
. He continued to draw and managed to avoid deportation through a "medical" opinion confirming he had been baptised as a Protestant, and so could not be Jewish. He was liberated from the camp by the British forces.
After World War II
Only a small number of the characters he drew survived. After the war, Ochs used his drawings to reconstruct scenes from the camp. He published these in 1947, in a book called Breendonck – Bagnards et Bourreaux [Breendonck – Slave Laborers and Hangmen].SS-Sturmbannführer Schmitt, the commandant of Breedonck camp and, later, of Mechelen transit camp, was tried in Antwerpen in 1950 and sentenced to death. He was the only SS man sentenced in Belgium, and his was the last execution before the country abolished the death penalty.
After the war Ochs returned to work as a lecturer in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and even though his sight had been damaged during his internment, he continued to paint and draw. In 1948 he became a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts de Belgique [The Royal Academy of Science, Literature and Art in Belgium] and a member of the Commission d'Achat des Musées Royaux d'Art Moderne [Acquisitions Commission of the Royal Museums of Modern Art].
He exhibited in many exhibitions, among them group exhibitions of the "Circle of Fine Arts", and a retrospective exhibition was also held for him. Ochs received many awards in recognition of his artistic talents, among them a gold medal at the second Biennale in Menton [Médaille d'or de la deuxième Biennale de Menton] in 1953, and a gold medal for art, science and letters in Paris [Médaille d'or des Arts, Sciences et Lettres, Paris] in 1959.
Death
Ochs died in Liege in 1971, 88 years old.A number of his drawings from Mechelen were donated to the art collection of Beit Lohamei Haghetaot (the Ghetto Fighters' House
Ghetto Fighters' House
The Ghetto Fighters' House , full name, Itzhak Katzenelson Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum and Study Center, was founded in 1949 by members of Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot, a community of Holocaust survivors, among them fighters of the ghetto undergrounds and partisan units...
Museum)http://www.gfh.org.il/Eng/Index.asp?ArticleID=29&CategoryID=62&Page=1 by Irène Awret, who was interned with him in this camp.