Jacques Gotko (Yakow Gotkowski)

Born 1900 in Odessa, Ukraine; died 1943 in Auschwitz-Birkenau

Background
1905, Gotko and his family emigrated from Odessa to Paris due to fear of pogroms.  His father, a factory worker, died eight years later, leaving a widow and two small children.  Despite the family's financial difficulties, Gotko was sent to study architecture and scenery design at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.  On completing his studies, he worked as a scenery designer for films and painted, producing works exhibited and well-received at prestigious Paris galleries such as the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants.  In 1935, Gotko moved to the small town of Charente to paint.  He was very close to his mother and sister and they came to live near Gotko and his French wife.  April 26, 1939, a show of watercolors produced at Charente opened at Galerie Jeanne Castelle in Paris.  This was Gotko's last exhibition.

Arrest and Internment at Compičgne
July 1941, Gotko was arrested as a Russian subject, released after a few days, rearrested, this time as a Jew, and sent to Compičgne.  All the paintings in his Charente studio were destroyed by the Nazis.

Transfer to Drancy
From Compičgne, Gotko was transferred to Drancy, where he was later joined by his mother and sister.  November 1942, Gotko witnessed their deportation to Auschwitz.

Art Produced at Camps
At Compičgne and Drancy, Gotko continued his artistic activities, producing woodcuts, drawings, and watercolors.  He also received many portrait commissions, sending his earnings from these works to his wife.  Some of the paintings made at Compičgne came into the possession of fellow internees such as the artist Isis Kischka or the scientist and historian Georges Wellers, who donated them to the Ghetto Fighters' House art collection.  Others belong to the Musée d'Histoire Contemporaine in Paris.

Deportation to Auschwitz
July 31, 1943, Gotko was sent to Auschwitz, and died of typhus shortly after his arrival.

Bibliography:
Fenster, Hirsh.  Undzere Farpainikte Kinstler (Nos artistes martyrs).  Paris, 1951.

Fredj, Jacques.  L'internement des juifs sous Vichy.  Paris, 1996.

Memorial in Honor of Jewish Artists, Victims of Nazism.  Haifa, undated.

Michel, Michelle.  Exposition Résistance, déportation: Création dans le bruit des armes.  Paris, 1980.

Novitch, Miriam.  Resistenza spirituale: 120 disegni dai campi di concentramento e dai ghetti, 1940-1945. (Spiritual Resistance: 120 Drawings from Concentration Camps and Ghettos 1940-1945).  Milan, 1979.

Novitch, Miriam, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, and Tom L. Freudenheim.  Spiritual Resistance: Art from Concentration Camps, 1940-1945.  Philadelphia, 1981.

Seize peintres de Paris.  Geneva, 1971.

Silver, Kenneth E. and Romy Golan.  The Circle of Montparnasse: Jewish Artists in Paris 1905-1945.  New York, 1985.

Wellers, Georges.  Un juif sous Vichy.  Paris, 1991.