Ernst Julius Cohen ForMemRS (7 March 1869 – 6 March 1944) was a Dutch Jewish chemist known for his work on the allotropy of metals. Cohen studied chemistry under Svante Arrhenius in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

, Henri Moissan at Paris, and Jacobus van't Hoff at Amsterdam. In 1893 he became Van't Hoff's assistant and in 1902 he became professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Utrecht, a position which he held until his retirement in 1939. Throughout his life, Cohen studied the allotropy of tin. Cohen's areas of research included polymorphism of both elements and compounds, photographic chemistry, electrochemistry, pizeochemistry, and the history of science. He published more than 400 papers and numerous books. In 1913 he became member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1926. Following the 29 April 1942 decree that Dutch Jews wear the yellow badge, he was arrested by Nazi police for non-compliance and forced to resign. According to Margit Szöllösi-Janze, in her book, ''Science in the Third Reich'', Cohen "put great efforts into restoring the relationships of Western European scientists with their German colleagues after the First World War." He was killed on 6 March 1944 in a gas chamber at

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

Literary works

* "'' J. H. van 't Hoff, his life and work''", 1912 * "''Impressions of the Land of Benjamin Franklin''", 1928

References

External links

Weintraub, B. (2003). Tin Disease and Ernst Julius Cohen (1869-1944); Chemistry in Israel, Bull. Isr. Chem. Soc., Issue 9, Apr. 2002, p 31-32. 1944 deaths 1869 births 19th-century Dutch chemists Dutch civilians killed in World War II Dutch people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp Foreign Members of the Royal Society Jewish chemists Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Scientists from Amsterdam University of Amsterdam alumni Academic staff of Utrecht University Dutch Jews who died in the Holocaust 20th-century Dutch chemists {{Netherlands-scientist-stub