Abraham Icek Tuschinski

Abraham Icek Tuschinski (

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

spelling: Tuszyński) (

Brzeziny Brzeziny (; yi, ברעזין, ''Brezin'') is a town in Poland, in Łódź Voivodeship, about 20 km east of Łódź. It is the capital of Brzeziny County and has a population of 12,326 as of December 2021. It once was a thriving Jewish sh ...

(near

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...

), 14 May 1886 – Auschwitz, 17 September 1942) was a Dutch businessman of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

descent who ordered the construction of the Tuschinski Theater, a famed

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

. While emigrating to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in 1903 Tuschinski decided to remain in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

during his stopover there. He found success as a cinema owner, opening his first four cinemas in 1911: the Thalia, Cinema Royal, Scala and Olympia. His most luxurious cinema in Rotterdam, the Grand Theater, opened in 1928. His crowning achievement, the Tuschinski Theater, opened its doors in Amsterdam on 28 October 1921. The theater had an audience capacity of 1620, which made it the largest Dutch cinema at the time. The unique design of this building was a mix of three modern styles: Amsterdamse School,

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

and

Jugendstil ''Jugendstil'' ("Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910. It was the German counterpart of ...

. The elaborate exterior and opulent, richly decorated interior were restored to their former glory in the period 1998–2002. Tuschinski also opened another famed Amsterdam cinema, the Roxy Theater, in 1928. When

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

broke out, Tuschinski lost all his cinemas in Rotterdam when the city was bombed by the Germans on 14 May 1940 (see

Rotterdam Blitz Rotterdam was subjected to heavy aerial bombardment by the ''Luftwaffe'' during the German invasion of the Netherlands in World War II. The objective was to support the German troops fighting in the city, break Dutch resistance and force the ...

). On 1 July 1942 he was transported to the

Westerbork Camp Westerbork ( nl, Kamp Westerbork, german: Durchgangslager Westerbork, Drents: ''Börker Kamp; Kamp Westerbörk'' ), also known as Westerbork transit camp, was a Nazi transit camp in the province of Drenthe in the Northeastern Netherlands, ...

concentration camp in the northeast of the Netherlands, and from there to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tuschinski, Abraham Icek 1886 births 1942 deaths Dutch people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp 20th-century Dutch businesspeople Dutch civilians killed in World War II Dutch Jews who died in the Holocaust Dutch people of Polish-Jewish descent People from Brzeziny