Alle Jong

Honorary Portrait of Irena Sendler by Alle Jong 230x150cm oil on linnen 2014

Alle Jong & Rosette van Beugen

Alle Jong feels the need to honour those who lived couragefull lives by creating monumental portraits. Jong also made hundred small portraits on paper of Jewish children who were murdered during the second world war in concentration camps as Auschwitz or Sobibor. And then magic happens; Alle Jong:

”A year ago i painted this girl chosen out of sevenhundred photographs of different children who were murdered during the second world war. Who could imagine that the first portrait would be of a girl wich lived close to my house and art academy, just around the corner? A very strange coincidence!”

This girl was Rosette van beugen. When Jong discovered Rosette had lived just in the front of the art academy were he had studied for over five years he went to the local Synagoge to learn about this girl. The director of the Synagoge told Jong that he should meet an old woman Mrs Tromp. She is 102 at the moment and lives in Amsterdam now, but a huge coincidence happened again when Jong heard Mrs Tromp was born at the same house as Rosette. And she has still the ownership of the building. If you remember that after the war the Jewish population did shrink from 3.000 to 125 this coincidence is even greater. Short after meeting Mrs Tromp Jong she gave the contact of two old neighbours of Rosette.  Jong was sitting inbetween two old girlfriends of Rosette when he did show for the first time in 70 years photographs of Rosette and her family, an emotional moment. On the background in a closet was standing a childrens tablewear wich Rosette had given her girlfriend, for if she came back. Rosette was murdered in 1942 at Sobibor at age 9 with her entire family. On May 4th (Rememberence day) she was remembered by hundreds in the Great Synagoge in Groningen, her portrait was hanging in the center of the Synagoge getting all the attention, she is alive again trough her story that is being forwarded now.

Irena Sendler (née Krzyżanowska, also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland, nom de guerre Jolanta; 15 February 1910 – 12 May 2008) was a Polish nurse/social worker who served in the Polish Underground during World War II, and as head of children’s section of Żegota, an underground resistance organization in German-occupied Warsaw. Assisted by some two dozen other Żegota members, Sendler smuggled some 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and then provided them with false identity documents and with housing outside the Ghetto, saving those children during the Holocaust.

The Nazis eventually discovered her activities, tortured her, and sentenced her to death, but she managed to evade execution and survive the war. In 1965, Sendler was recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations. Late in life she was awarded Poland’s highest honor for her wartime humanitarian efforts. She appears on a silver 2008 Polish commemorative coin honoring some of the Polish Righteous among the Nations.

Honourary portrait of Rosette van Beugen who was murdered by the Nazi’s at Sobibor in 1942 at age 9

 Photograph of wall small drawings of child portraits, victems murdered by the Nazi’s