Elka de Levie (21 November 1905 – 29 December 1979) was an Amsterdam-born Dutch gymnast who won the gold medal as member of the Dutch gymnastics team at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. She was the only Jewish team member to survive the Holocaust; her teammates Anna Dresden-Polak, Jud Simons and Helena Nordheim and coach Gerrit Kleerekoper were gassed in Sobibor, while Estella Agsteribbe was gassed in Auschwitz. The entire team was elected to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1997.

On 31 October 1929 she married Andries Abraham Boas, with whom she had two daughters, but the couple were divorced on 20 April 1943. She and both her daughters survived the Second World War by going into hiding. Elka de Levie died in anonymity in Amsterdam on 29 December 1979.

Elka de Levie

See also

List of select Jewish gymnasts

References

Further reading

External links

Database Olympics profile

Elka de Levie commemoration, Yad Vashem website

1905 births

1979 deaths

Dutch female artistic gymnasts

Dutch Jews

Jewish gymnasts

Jewish Dutch sportspeople

Gymnasts at the 1928 Summer Olympics

Olympic gymnasts for the Netherlands

Olympic gold medalists for the Netherlands

Gymnasts from Amsterdam

Dutch Holocaust survivors

Olympic medalists in gymnastics

International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame inductees

Medalists at the 1928 Summer Olympics

Elka de Levie