Leo Kok

Leo Kok (self-portrait from 1944)

Leo Kok (born on January 7, 1923 in Berchem near Antwerp , Belgium ; died on May 12, 1945 in Ebensee , Austria ) was a Dutch decorative and advertising painter, outfitter, costume and set designer and victim of the Holocaust .

Life

The son of a Jewish-Dutch diamond cutter working in Antwerp had received training as a decorator and advertising painter immediately before the German troops marched into Belgium (1940). After the country was occupied by the Wehrmacht, the family fled back to their Dutch homeland, where Leo Kok worked as a freelance commercial artist. In Geesbrug, where Kok last lived, German authorities deported him in 1942 to the Westerbork transit camp , where Kok made a name for himself as the artistic director of Max Ehrlich's camp performances . Kok designed sets and costumes, which he implemented with the few resources available.

Kok married the camp inmate Kitty de Wijze, a nurse, in December 1943, and both were deported to Theresienstadt in September 1944. In the same month, coke was transported to the Auschwitz extermination camp . He owed his survival to his youthful age and a fairly stable health until January 1945, when it was decided that he would be transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp as part of the general “evacuation” from Auschwitz . From there, the 21-year-old was taken to the Ebensee satellite camp . There it was used in rock tunnels in the manufacture of so-called “ miracle weapons ” for the “ final victory ”. When Ebensee was liberated on May 6, 1945, Kok was so weakened that he only lived six days.

literature

• Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 208.
• Jaap Nijstad: Getekend in Westerbork. Leven en werk van Leo Kok 1923-1945 , Amsterdam 1990.

Web links

• Leo Kok in Biografisch Portaal van Nederland
• Oorlogsverhaal Leo Kok (Dutch)