Metadata: Lon Landau archives
Collection
- Country:
- Belgium
- Holding institution:
- House of Literature
- Holding institution (official language):
- Letterenhuis
- Postal address:
- Minderbroedersstraat 22, 2000 Antwerpen
- Phone number:
- +32 (0)3 222 93 20
- Web address:
- http://www.letterenhuis.be/
- Reference number:
- HLit-Antwerp-L1835
- Title:
- Lon Landau archives
- Title (official language):
- Archief van Lon Landau
- Creator/accumulator:
- Landau, Léon
- Date(s):
- 1937
- Extent:
- 1 folder
- Scope and content:
- This fonds contain correspondence by Léon Landau. We also find two watercolours of designs for costumes for the play Lucifer, performed at the Koninklijke Nederlandsche Schouwberg in 1937.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Léon Landau descended from a family of Zionists. He spent part of his youth in a kibbutz in Palestine. Returned to Belgium (from 1930), he studied at the Academie voor Schone Kunsten (Antwerp) and the École de la Cambre (Brussels). Landau is best known for his work in theatre: he founded the groep Honderd en Elf, made costumes and built sets for the Koninklijke Nederlandsche Schouwburg in Antwerp, and was also the founder of the experimental Gezelschap Joris Diels. Landau fought in the ’18 Days’ Campaign’ as a reserve officer. He was denounced in 1943 and imprisoned in the Kazerne Dossin, where we got involved in the camp resistance. He also built a puppet theatre for the children there. He was deported to Auschwitz with the 24th convoy. Eventually Landau ended up in Bergen-Belsen, where he died in 1945, not long before the liberation of the camp. (J.-P. Schreiber, “Landau, Léon”, in J.-P. Schreiber, Dictionnaire biographique des Juifs de Belgique. Figures du judaïsme belge, XIXe-XXe siècles, Brussel, De Boeck, 2002, pp. 211-212.)
- Access points: locations:
- Antwerp
- Access points: persons/families:
- Landau, Léon
- Finding aids:
- The fonds is described in the Agrippa database of the Letterenhuis.
- Yerusha Network member:
- State Archives of Belgium
