Michel Velleman (5 January 1895 – 2 July 1943),
[Michel Velleman](_blank)
in Joods Historisch Museum
The (; en, Jewish Museum), part of the Jewish Cultural Quarter, is a museum in Amsterdam dedicated to Jewish history, culture and religion, in the Netherlands and worldwide. It is the only museum in the Netherlands dedicated to Jewish history. ...
monument to victims of the Shoah
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
known by his stage name Professor Ben Ali Libi, was a
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
magician who was murdered in the
Sobibor extermination camp
Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland.
As ...
during
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 opposin ...
.
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
Willem Wilmink
Willem Wilmink (; Enschede, 25 October 1936 – 2 August 2003) was a Dutch poet and writer. He was best known for the large number of songs he wrote for popular children programs and his accessible, straightforward poetry.
Life and career
Wilmi ...
wrote a
poem
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...
about his being murdered by the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
.
Biography
He was born in
Groningen
Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
in the Netherlands and later moved to
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
.
Velleman was a well-known magician, performing for notables such as the
Dutch prince consort and the exiled
German Emperor Wilhelm II.
He wrote a booklet of simple magic tricks that was published in 1925.
His precise politics are not known, but he supported workers' rights, including giving free magic performances to striking workers during the 1920s.
Besides paid work in
variety shows
Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a compèr ...
, he often performed for charity, including at
almshouses
An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) was charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the medieval era. They were often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain ...
.
During World War II, Velleman worked for the Cultural Department of the "
Jewish Council
A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every com ...
," the Nazi administrative structure imposed on Jewish communities in occupied territory.
Velleman and his wife Anna (née Speijer) were living in Amsterdam when they were abducted during a
razzia on June 2, 1943.
His family was sent through the
Westerbork transit camp
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, d ...
before arriving at the
Sobibor extermination camp
Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland.
As ...
.
His daughter Aaltje, who had
Down syndrome
Down syndrome or Down's syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual dis ...
, was murdered at Sobibor in May 1943.
Velleman and Anna both died in 1943 at Sobibor.
His son Jacques survived the war.
In 2017, a memorial to Velleman was established in his birth town of Groningen.
Wilmink's Poem
Wilmink's poem, titled "Ben Ali Libi," was written sometime after the war, as it concerns Wilmink's experience in reading Velleman's name on a list of those murdered in camps in a book by
Dutch resistance member
Henk van Gelderen.
The penultimate verse of the poem reads in English translation:
And always when there’s a shouter to see
with an alternative for democracy
I think: your paradise, how much space is there
for Ben Ali Libi, the magician?
The poem became more well-known after Dutch actor
Joost Prinsen recited it on television.
Herman van Veen set the poem to music in 2009.
In 2015, Velleman was the subject of a Dutch
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
titled ''Ben Ali Libi, Magician,'' directed by Dirk Jan Roeleven.
The film was released in the Netherlands and shown in international film festivals.
References
External links
*
The poem in Dutch (a.o.)Poem being read aloudby
Joost PrinsenAnimated version of the poem
1895 births
1943 deaths
Dutch Jews
Dutch magicians
People from Groningen (city)
Dutch people who died in Sobibor extermination camp
Dutch civilians killed in World War II
{{entertainer-stub