Johnny & Jones

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Johnny & Jones
Autograph card from Johnny (l.) And Jones (r.), Ca.1938
Autograph card from Johnny (l.)
And Jones (r.), Ca.1938
General information
origin Amsterdam , ( Netherlands )
Genre (s) jazz
founding 1936
Founding members
Nol van Wesel (Johnny)
Max Kannewasser (Jones)

Johnny & Jones was the name of a jazz duo from Amsterdam , consisting of Arnold "Nol" Siméon van Wesel (Johnny) ( August 3, 1918 - March 20, 1945 ) and Max Salomon Meyer Kannewasser (Jones) ( September 24, 1916 - April 15, 1945 ). Both musicians were victims of the Holocaust .

Musical career

Westerbork Serenade (1944)
Wij slopen met muziek (1944)
Van Wesel (r.) And Kannewasser during their captivity in Kamp Westerbork in 1944 (drawing by Leo Kok )

Nol van Wesel and Max Kannewasser were employed in the Amsterdam department store De Bijenkorf . Van Wesel worked in the accounting department, while Kannewasser sold white goods . Their first well-known appearance was in 1934 when they played at a company party with musicians other than the quartet The Bijko Rhythm Stompers . In 1936 they quit their jobs in the department store and began performing under the name Johnny & Jones ; The model was the American duo Slim & Slam . They sang jazz songs accompanied by guitar; her biggest hit was Mijnheer Dinges weet niet wat swing is from 1938. The Dutch lyrics, sung with an American accent, were up-to-date and humorous, spiced with typical Amsterdam and Jewish humor. From 1937 Johnny & Jones appeared regularly on VARA radio and became extremely popular. They are considered to be the first teen idols in the Netherlands.

Camp and death

After the occupation of the Netherlands by the German Wehrmacht in May 1940, the duo was only allowed to perform in front of a Jewish audience because of their Jewish origins, and from 1941 they were banned from performing. Kannewasser was urged by the singer Max van Praag to go underground with him in Boskoop , which Kannewasser refused with the words "We are well-known artists, they don't arrest us". In 1943, however, the two men were deported by the Germans together with their wives to Kamp Westerbork . There they were used for the slaughter (sloperij) of shot down aircraft. During one of these missions near Weesp in 1944, with the consent of the Germans, they had the opportunity to record six songs in Amsterdam, four in Dutch and two in German. Among them were the Westerbork serenade and Wij slopen met muziek , both songs with bitter lyrics. The serenade foreshadowed: “Langs het spoorwegbaantje schijnt het zilveren maantje”. ("The silver moon shines along the railroad tracks.")

Here, too, van Wesel and Kannewasser turned down several offers to escape or go into hiding. They said they were convinced that nothing would happen to them. The real reason was probably that their wives were still trapped in Westerbork. In the camp, Johnny & Jones performed at least once under their name and sang under Max Ehrlich as part of his camp revues. Further appearances in the revues are said to have failed due to their poor German, but they made music in the camp coffee house.

On September 4, 1944, Nol van Wesel and Max Kannewasser were deported one of the last transports from Westerbork to Theresienstadt , Auschwitz , Sachsenhausen , Ohrdruf and finally to Bergen-Belsen . They died there in the last days of World War II . Kannewasser's wife, Nanny, survived the Holocaust.

memory

In 2001 the documentary Johnny & Jones by Hans Hylkema was made in the Netherlands . In the same year the short opera by Theo Loevendie and Carel Alphenaar was performed at the Holland Festival . The Verzetsmuseum Amsterdam showed the exhibition Johnny and Jones; two swinging kids and their fate .

Discography

  • Album Johnny and Jones: Two Kids and a Guitar (1938-1940)

literature

  • Wolfgang Kampa: Johnny & Jones: “Teenie Idols” of the 1930s in the Ohrdruf camp . In: Secret Jonastal . 2005 (4), pp. 16-17.

Web links

Commons : Johnny & Jones  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Articles by Johnny & Jones on Wikisource  - sources and full texts (Dutch)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ About Arnold Simeon van Wesel. In: joodsmonument.nl. Retrieved September 21, 2016 (Dutch).
  2. ↑ a b c Johnny en Jones. In: Joodsamsterdam. September 24, 1916, Retrieved September 22, 2016 (Dutch).
  3. ↑ Johnny and Jones - Mijnheer Dinges weet niet wat swing is on YouTube , April 30, 2009.
  4. ^ A b Johnny & Jones. In: TheaterEncyclopedie. Retrieved September 21, 2016 (Dutch).
  5. ↑ Marga van Praag: Jaap en Max. Singel Uitgeverijen, 2012, ISBN 978-90-388-9501-7 , p. 1904 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  6. ↑ Dirk Mulder / Ben Prinsen: Johnny & Jones (1916-1945, 1918-1945), zorgeloze liedjes in Kamp Westerbork. De Tweede Wereldoorlog in muziek, accessed on March 25, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Salomon Meijer Kannewasser et al.: Announcement of het huwelijk van Max Kannewasser en Nanny Koster. In: Het Joodsche Weekblad. Published on joodsmonument.nl, April 13, 2012, August 28, 1942, accessed on September 22, 2016 (Dutch).
  8. ↑ Over Salomon Meijer can water. In: joodsmonument.nl. February 28, 2006, accessed September 21, 2016 (Dutch). Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database - Nanny Kannewasser-Koster. In: ushmm.org. Retrieved September 22, 2016 .
  9. ^ Johnny & Jones - Nederlands Film Festival. (No longer available online.) In: filmfestival.nl. Archived from the original on September 21, 2016 ; Retrieved September 21, 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.filmfestival.nl
  10. ^ Johnny & Jones Opera. In: musiques-regenerees.fr. Retrieved September 21, 2016 .
  11. ^ Verzetsmuseum - Johnny and Jones; two swinging kids and their fate. In: verzetsmuseum.org. November 5, 2001, accessed September 22, 2016 (Dutch).
  12. ^ Johnny & Jones - Two Kids And A Guitar, 1938– '40. In: discogs.com. Retrieved September 21, 2016 .