Historian Stefan van der Poel has written a biography about the Jewish doctor Elie Aron Cohen. With thanks to his daughter and the many letters she entrusted to him.
Because those letters made Van der Poel decide to write the book. “Letters that Cohen wrote immediately after the Second World War and later. They gave me a lot of information, told me a lot about his character.”
Dissertation on Jewish Stadjers
Van der Poel (55) teaches history at the University of Groningen and has several publications to his name. A biography about Herman Verbeek, among other things. More than twenty years ago he wrote his dissertation on Jewish Stadjers and it was then that he studied the life and work of Elie Aaron Cohen (1909-1993) for the first time.
Cohen survived the Auschwitz extermination camp and gained fame a few years after the liberation with a dissertation on the behavior of victims and perpetrators in the extermination camps.
Van der Poel was fascinated by Cohen and wrote an article about the doctor in the Historical Yearbook Groningen in 2021. He also gave a lecture about Cohen at the time.
Nine binders with letters
“And then I was approached by Naomi, daughter from Cohen’s second marriage,” says Van der Poel. “She lives in Weesp and had nine binders with correspondence from and to her father and she lent them to me. I got to read them and it was fascinating. With that extra information and knowledge, I decided to write the biography.” It’s called Between Aduard and Auschwitz. And that one is me and therefore tells about Cohen’s life and his complex character. About his camp experiences and their consequences.
That life started in the Folkingestraat in Stad. That’s where Elie Aron Cohen grew up. His parents were not well off, but he was able to study medicine, thanks to support from the Society for the Benefit of Israel.
‘He helped some prisoners’
He married, became a general practitioner in Aduard, but had to close his practice in 1941, forced by the German occupiers. He wanted to flee to Sweden with his wife and son, but was betrayed and eventually ended up in Camp Westerbork. As a doctor he had a special position there, the Germans needed his help. “He helped some prisoners with explanations that they could not be transported to the east,” said Van der Poel. “But he was caught ‘cheating’. Then he was deported to Auschwitz with his wife and child.”
His son and wife were gassed there. His profession helped him again, he had to support the doctor on duty. Just before the liberation of Auschwitz, he had to leave the camp and took part in one of the infamous death marches. He survived that too and so he returned to Groningen.
Letters to sister-in-law in New York
“He quickly started writing letters to his sister-in-law who had emigrated to New York,” says Van der Poel. “Letters in which he asked for help, he had insufficient food and other supplies, and in which he wrote about his experiences. He wrote ninety letters in that period shortly after the liberation. Letters that also spoke about his feelings of guilt.”
Those feelings always plagued him. The restart he made by marrying again, having two children (daughter Naomi and son Dan) and settling as a doctor in Arnhem did not take away those feelings. The fact that he had survived Auschwitz and many others had not continued to haunt him. With that feeling, he wrote his dissertation and conducted research into the consequences of camp experiences. He also expressed his feelings very openly in countless interviews, which is how he became a famous Dutchman.
Feeling of inferiority
A well-known Dutchman with a complex character, says Van der Poel. “Because in his letters he also expresses a great feeling of inferiority. Maybe that was related to his poor childhood. He quickly felt passed over and could then lash out fiercely at others. That inferiority complex, that insecurity, never left him. What also keeps recurring is the fact that he embraced his camp experiences, as it were, it formed his identity.”
Cohen made a distinction between life before and after the war. Aduard was the time of great happiness, Auschwitz the opposite of that. In the 1980s he returned to Aduard where the monument bearing the names of his wife and son was unveiled. He gave a speech in which he said that only one of the Aduard Jews was still alive. “And that one is me,” he said.
Not happy for the most part
“I used those words for the title of my book,” says Van der Poel. “He died in 1993, after a life that was largely not a happy one. You can also taste that in those letters that brought me so close to him. And they made me write a very personal biography.”
That biography was published by Uitgeverij Van Gorcum and will be presented on April 19 in Aduard and a week later in the Synagogue in Groningen.
