Jacques Ochs (18 February 1883 – 3 April 1971), was a
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
Belgian
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...
and Olympic fencer in the
épée
The (, ; ), also rendered as epee in English, is the largest and heaviest of the three weapons used in the sport of fencing. The modern derives from the 19th-century , a weapon which itself derives from the French small sword. This contains a ...
style (in which he was champion) and competed in the saber, and
foil
Foil may refer to:
Materials
* Foil (metal), a quite thin sheet of metal, usually manufactured with a rolling mill machine
* Metal leaf, a very thin sheet of decorative metal
* Aluminium foil, a type of wrapping for food
* Tin foil, metal foil ma ...
fencing
Fencing is a combat sport that features sword fighting. It consists of three primary disciplines: Foil (fencing), foil, épée, and Sabre (fencing), sabre (also spelled ''saber''), each with its own blade and set of rules. Most competitive fe ...
categories.
Biography
Ochs was Jewish,
and was born in
Nice, France
Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department in France. The Nice urban unit, agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million . His family moved to
Liège
Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
, in 1893.
He was the Belgian Champion fencer in 1912 and competed for Belgium in the
1912 Stockholm Olympics, winning a
gold medal
A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture.
Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...
in the team épée event (his teammates included
Gaston Salmon).
He also competed in three individual events at the same Olympics. In the individual foil and individual épée categories, he reached the 2nd round before being eliminated (he finished 39th in foil, and 29th in épée.) Ochs's final event was individual sabre, but he was eliminated in the 1st round.
Whilst pursuing a career as a professional fencer, he also worked at the newspapers "Newspaper of Liège", "Small Parisian", and "the Belgian Nation", drawing caricatures. His cartoons of personalities on the front page of the weekly ''Pourquoi Pas?'' between 1910 and 1971 made him very famous in Belgium.
During the Second World War, he was imprisoned on 17 December in the
Fort Breendonk
Fort Breendonk (, ) is a former military installation at Breendonk, near Mechelen, Belgium, which served as a Nazi prison camp (''Auffanglager'') during the German occupation of Belgium during World War II.
Originally constructed between 1906 ...
camp.
.The Germans had a file against him containing, among other things, a caricature that appeared in an old ''Pourquoi Pas?'' newspaper and depicted a Hitler with bloody hands. He was detained in the Mechelen barracks and sentenced to death, but the German debacle saved his life.. The camp's prisoners suffered from starvation, grass eating, torture, hangings, and shootings. He survived imprisonment.
[''The Prisoners of Breendonk: Personal Histories from a World War II ...'' – James M. Deem](_blank)
/ref>
Ochs died in Liège in 1971, 88 years old.
See also
* List of select Jewish fencers
*List of Jewish Olympic medalists
Since the inception of the modern Olympic Games in 1896, Jewish athletes have taken part in both the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics. The following is a list of Jewish athletes who have won an Olympic medal in the modern games.
Under ...
References
Bibliography
*
External links
bio
Holocaust through Art bio
Jews in Sports bio
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ochs, Jacques
Belgian male sabre fencers
Belgian male épée fencers
Belgian male foil fencers
Jewish épée fencers
Jewish Belgian sportspeople
1971 deaths
Académie Julian alumni
Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium
Olympic fencers for Belgium
Fencers at the 1912 Summer Olympics
Olympic gold medalists for Belgium
Olympic medalists in fencing
Belgian caricaturists
Belgian humorists
Belgian magazine illustrators
Jewish caricaturists
Belgian military personnel of World War I
Breendonk prison camp survivors
1883 births
Medalists at the 1912 Summer Olympics
Sportspeople from Nice
Belgian Jews
Belgian people of French descent
20th-century Belgian painters
Jewish foil fencers
Jewish sabre fencers