Jonas Slier

Jonas Slier
Personal information
Nationality:	Netherlands
discipline	Apparatus gymnastics
Society:	Spartacus Amsterdam
Birthday:	March 26, 1886
Place of birth:	Amsterdam , Netherlands
Death day:	November 5, 1942
Place of death:	Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp , Poland

The Dutch gymnastics team at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London .

Jonas Slier (born March 26, 1886 in Amsterdam , Netherlands ; † November 5, 1942 in Auschwitz-Birkenau , Poland ) was a Dutch gymnast who took part in the 1908 Summer Olympics in London .

Life

Jonas Slier was born on March 26, 1886, the second oldest of ten children of Philip Slier (1858-1937) and Betje Benjamin (1862-1943) in Amsterdam. At the age of 22, the then member of the Amsterdam gymnastics community Spartacus took part in the 1908 Summer Olympics, which took place in London from April 27, 1908 to October 31, 1908, where it was used in individual all-around gymnastics . Here Slier only finished penultimate place in a field of 97 participants and also ranked penultimate place with the Dutch in the team all-around competition, but ahead of the host country. Subsequently, he did not appear at any Olympic Games and spent his rest of life, among other things, as a merchant in his hometown of Amsterdam. On July 24, 1912, the then 26-year-old married Anna Plas, who was six years his junior and gave birth to their son Louis that same year. On March 18, 1917, their second child, son Arnold, called Nol , was born. He and his wife ran a stall on the Nieuwmarkt in the center of Amsterdam , where they both sold textiles and jewelry. Here they were supported by their two sons, among others.

Like most of his family, Jonas Slier was interned in the internment or concentration camps of the National Socialists in Poland from 1942 . Brother Andries (1888–1942), the third oldest in the group of ten siblings, is likely to have been the first close family member of Jonas Sliers, who fell victim to the Holocaust when he was executed on October 12, 1942 in Auschwitz . A short time later, on November 5, 1942, Jonas Slier himself had to give his life to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp . Next, his sister Debora (1896–1943) was killed in Auschwitz, ten days later his firstborn son Louis (1912–1943) was also killed in the concentration camps at Auschwitz. After his sister Grietje (1893–1943) and his sister Duifje (1891–1943) were also victims of the Holocaust in Auschwitz on February 5, 1943, his then 80-year-old mother died in the transit camp on February 17, 1942 Westerbork . The father Philip had died naturally in his hometown of Amsterdam a few years before the Holocaust. On April 9, 1943, the eldest child in the family, Jonas Slier's brother Joseph (1885–1943), was killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Around two months later, his brother Eliazar (1890–1943) and his wife Anna (1891–1943) were two of the estimated 33,000 Dutch victims in the Sobibor extermination camp ; their lives were taken on June 4, 1943. Nothing is known about the whereabouts of two brothers who are not known by name (* 1894 and 1898) and a sister who is also not known by name (* 1901), but it can be assumed that they also lost their lives in one of the concentration or extermination camps let; as are numerous other relatives of Jonas Sliers. Arnold, the eldest son of Jonas and Anna Slier, survived the Holocaust and died on January 16, 1995 at the age of 77 in Alkmaar .

Web links

• Jonas Slier in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Jonas Slier on joodsmonument.nl (Dutch)

Literature (selection)

• Deborah Slier, Ian Shine: Philip Slier's Last Summer: Letters from Molengoot Camp, 1942 . 1st edition. Osburg Verlag , Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-940731-32-6 .
• Kay Schaffer, Sidonie Smith: The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics, and the Games . Rutgers University Press , New Brunswick (New Jersey) 2000, ISBN 978-0-8135-2820-5 .