Ben Bril

Ben Bril
Data
Birth Name	Barend Bril
Weight class	Featherweight
nationality	Netherlands
birthday	July 16, 1912
place of birth	Amsterdam
Date of death	September 11, 2003
Place of death	Amsterdam

Barend "Ben" Bril (born July 16, 1912 in Amsterdam ; † September 11, 2003 there ) was a Dutch boxer , referee and survivor of the Holocaust .

biography

Childhood and athletic career

Ben Bril was born the sixth of seven children to a fishmonger and the owner of a small shop. Bril grew up in a poor part of what was then Jodenbuurt around the Valkenburgerstraat; the family was so poor that he had to share a bed with his five brothers. Bril and his brothers learned boxing and other sports like soccer on the street. At the age of eleven, he and his eldest brother attended boxing center De Jonge Bokser , and from then on it was clear to him that he wanted to be a boxer.

Bril became a member of the Amsterdam Association of Olympic Maccabi . At the age of 15 he won his first title as Dutch amateur flyweight champion . He was then nominated for participation in the Olympic Games in his hometown, with his year of birth being faked from 1912 to 1911, because otherwise he would not have been allowed to start. His four brothers Jakob, Emmanuël, Sam and Seno sat in the stands and cheered him on. He reached the quarterfinals, where he lost to the South African boxer Bobby Lebanon . Bril was the youngest member of the Dutch team, the oldest at 28 years old was heavyweight boxer Sam Olij , who carried the Dutch team's flag at the opening event.

In total, Bril played over 200 boxing matches, was eight times Dutch champion and won the 1935 Maccabiade in Tel Aviv , where he won the final against the South African Jack Hahn. However, he never competed at the Olympic Games: in 1932 a board member of the boxing association, which belonged to the fascist NSB , is said to have successfully prevented this. In addition, the association had no money for the long journey, so not a single boxer was sent to Los Angeles . In 1936 it was Bril himself who refused to step into the ring in Berlin after seeing with his own eyes how Jewish people were treated there at a tournament in the German capital in 1935.

In addition to his talent, Ben Bril was also known for his striking boxing technique. In 1999 he reported in an interview with the sports journalist Wilfried de Jong that he had copied his technique from predators : “In the zoo, I observed how wild animals evade each other. I've rehearsed that. Lurk, strike and let's get away. ”It was thanks to this strategy that his hair was still in place at the end of the fighting, said de Jong, who compared Bril's nimble technique with that of Muhammad Ali .

At the age of 17, Bril was given the management of a slaughterhouse with a snack bar. The following year, he and two partners opened their own shop near the Rembrandtplein . After disagreements with his partners, he moved to Utrecht in 1931 , where he opened a slaughterhouse with a snack bar, which he ran until 1972 with the advertising slogan Beter Belde Broodjes Bij Ben Bril . In 1936 he married his wife Celia, the daughter of a diamond cutter , and their son Albert was born the following year.

On March 30, 1940, Bril won his eighth national title at the Frascati Theater in Amsterdam. After the fight he announced his retirement from boxing, probably also out of disappointment that the Tokyo Olympics would not take place. Five weeks later, the Netherlands was occupied by the German Wehrmacht .

Locked up in camps

Bril went into hiding and initially lived in the village of Stroe in the province of Gelderland . There he and his brother Harry were betrayed and tracked down, but were initially able to evade arrest. In January 1943 he was arrested by Jan Olij , the son of his former Olympic team-mate Sam Olij, at his home in Utrecht; Olij Bril's son Albert held a pistol to his head so that his father wouldn't try to fight back.

Sam Olij was a staunch National Socialist like his sons Jan and Kees and a member of the NSB; At times he had boxed in the same club as Bril. All three men had already become members of the NSB in the 1930s and convinced anti-Semites . From 1940 Sam Olij worked for the Central Office for Jewish Emigration and, together with his sons, was active as a so-called "Jew hunter" who, for a bounty of a few gulden, tracked down Jewish people in Amsterdam and revealed their hiding places. After the war, Olij was sentenced to death, but later pardoned.

On April 16, 1943, Bril, his wife Celia and his son Albert were interned in Kamp Vught . Six-year-old Albert was transported to Westerbork transit camp on July 16 , and his parents followed suit in September. The family was spared deportation to an extermination camp because Bril was a well-known boxer and his wife, who grew up in the USA , successfully claimed to be an American. On February 1, 1944, the family was sent to the star camp in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which housed so-called "exchange Jews" who were to be exchanged for internees from the Allies. From there they came to Switzerland and on to Marseille in January of the following year, along with 136 other Jewish people who had US and South American passports . When it turned out that Celia Bril was not a US citizen, the family was interned in another camp, a refugee camp in Algeria . From there, the three Brils returned to the Netherlands in August 1945.

Bril survived the time in the camps thanks to his boxing skills, as he competed and gave lessons; in return, he received more food and medicine for his family. Among his protégés in the camp was the then 14-year-old Gerhard Durlacher , who later became a well-known writer and also wrote a story about Bril. For working with the guards, he received privileges for himself and his family, which his boxing mate Ab de Vries condemned.

Bril's parents and five older brothers were killed in the Holocaust , only his youngest brother Herrie and Ben Bril survived, as did his wife Celia and his son Ab. A total of 182 members of his other family were murdered in extermination camps.

Second career in the ring

Brils hat, part of the 1928 Olympic clothing, now in the Amsterdam Museum

After the war, Ben Bril suffered from severe depression. In 1947 his wife turned to the Dutch Boxing Association for help, which then invited her husband to a course for referees.

Bril became a sought-after arbiter and as such was active in three Olympic Games - 1964 , 1968 and 1976 . In 1964, at the games in Tokyo, he caused a stir when he stormed into the ring from outside and pushed the Spaniard Valentín Loren into the corner. This had attacked a referee colleague because he had disqualified. Bril was voted the best boxing referee of the games.

Because of his strict impartiality, Bril was generally valued internationally, even if he was sometimes considered authoritarian and opinionated. In the first years of his work as a referee he refused to have anything to do with Germans, an attitude that he later gave up. Because of his neutral stance, he was often invited to international tournaments, where Soviet and US boxers came together. His motto: "A referee is responsible for two human lives." Bril has made sure that boxing has gained in reputation, so the sports journalist de Jong. In 1977 Ben Bril ended his second career as a referee.

Ben Bril died in his hometown of Amsterdam at the age of 91. He was buried in the Muiderberg Jewish cemetery .

Memory and honors

Two books appeared on the life of Ben Bril, one non-fiction book called Ben Bril. Star of David as Ereteken ( Ben Bril. Star of David as badge of honor ) as well as a novel-like treatment of Dansen om te overleven ( Prancing to survive ), written by Brils' great nephew, the American Steven Rosenfeld. Rosenfeld's book was created on the basis of interviews with Bril, who had previously strictly refused to talk about the war years. In October 2015 Rosenfeld handed over photos and documents from Bril to the National Monument Kamp Vught . Bril's equipment for the 1928 Olympic Games is in the Amsterdam Museum .

In Amsterdam, the Ben Bril Memorial boxing tournament is held annually in the Koninklijk Theater Carré , which took place for the tenth time in 2016.

literature

• Ed van Opzeeland: Ben Bril. Star of David as Ereteks . VI Boeken, 2006.
• Steven Rosenfeld: Dansen om te overleven. De oorlogsjaren van bokslegende Ben Bril . Novel. Uitgeverij Cossee, 2015.

Web links

Commons : Ben Bril  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ben Bril in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• ANP Historisch Archief Community - Sport-boksen-ben Bril. In: Anp Foundation. July 23, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2016 . 
• Sportpaleis de Jong - October 22, 1999. In: npogeschiedenis.nl. Retrieved July 22, 2016 (Dutch). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Bokser Ben Bril krijgt welverdiende biography. In: npogeschiedenis.nl. Retrieved July 20, 2016 (Dutch). 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Danielle Pinedo: Kontkrummel met stevige knuisten. (No longer available online.) In: vorige.nrc.nl. November 30, 2006, archived from the original on July 22, 2016 ; Retrieved July 22, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Steven Rosenfeld: Dansen om te overleven. Uitgeverij Cossee, 2015, ISBN 978-90-5936-620-6 ( limited preview in Google book search).
4. ↑ ^{a b} De oude bokser en de dood. In: de Volkskrant. September 15, 2003, accessed July 22, 2016 (Dutch). 
5. ^ Chaim Wein: The Maccabi Games in Eretz-Israel . Maccabi World Union, Tel Aviv 1983, p. 85 and 100 .
6. ↑ ^{a b c} George Marlet: Aflevering 7: bokser Ben Bril (84). In: trouw.nl. Retrieved July 21, 2016 (Dutch). 
7. ↑ van Opzeeland, Ben Bril , p 48
8. ^ Collectie - Joods Historisch Museum - Joods Cultureel Kwartier. In: hollandscheschouwburg.nl. Retrieved July 23, 2016 . 
9. ↑ Olij, Jan. In: go2war2.nl. November 17, 1941, accessed July 22, 2016 (Dutch). 
10. ↑ David Koker: At the Edge of the Abyss. Northwestern University Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-8101-2636-7 , p. 230 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
11. ↑ Kevin Prenger: Een boksring op de appelplaats van kamp Vught. In: historiek.net. November 19, 2015, accessed July 25, 2016 (Dutch). 
12. ↑ ^{a b} Boek over bokslegende Ben Bril. (No longer available online.) In: Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught. October 27, 2015, archived from the original on July 20, 2016 ; Retrieved July 20, 2016 (Dutch). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ↑ Het verhaal achter bokser Ben Bril (1912–2003). In: rtvnh.nl. October 9, 2014, accessed July 21, 2016 . 
14. ^ OS-TOKIO-1964-BOKSEN. In: gehugenvannederland.nl. Retrieved July 22, 2016 (Dutch). 
15. ↑ Utrecht Nieuwsblad . October 13, 1964, p. 11
16. ↑ Best of Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games. Retrieved July 23, 2016 . 
17. ↑ November 16, 1977: Afscheid van Ben Bril, bokser en Scheidsrechter. In: Sportkroniek. November 16, 1977. Retrieved July 22, 2016 . 
18. ^ Muiderberg - Hoogduits-Joodse Begraafplaats. In: online-begraafplaatsen.nl. Retrieved July 23, 2016 . 
19. ^ Koninklijk Theater Carré: Ben Bril Boksmemorial - Jubileumeditie. (No longer available online.) In: carre.nl. Archived from the original on July 22, 2016 ; Retrieved July 22, 2016 (Dutch). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.