Liny Yollick

Born in 1924 in the Netherlands, Liny Yollick has painted all her life. As a girl, she dabbled in watercolors, however most of her focus was directed towards her studies, as she attended a rigorous school system.  Then, in 1941 the Germans invaded and life headed towards a path of devastation for Yollick, her family, and the approximately 140,000 other Jews who lived in the Netherlands.

As all Jewish students and professors were forced out of the schools, made to wear the Star of David and endure additional forms of segregation, they formed a Lycee where Yollick studied fervently for one year.  During that time, she suffered through grueling German edicts, and one-by-one watched as her friends and family vanished into Concentration Camps, never to be heard from again.  When the final figures were made known after the war, it emerged that about 107,000 Dutch Jews had been deported – of whom only 5,200 had survived.  Fortunately, Yollick, her mother and three sisters escaped – By a stroke of sheer luck.

By edict, the Jewish people were not allowed on trains, and anyone traveling had to provide identification papers.  Knowing that life in the Netherlands meant an almost certain death, Yollick’s mother took her girls, purposefully left their papers at home, and tempted fate by boarding a train headed to France.  Miraculously, no one checked their papers – had they, Yollick and her family would have been sent directly to a Concentration Camp.  One week later, the Germans came to her home to capture the family, only to learn they had escaped. 

The family stayed in France for two months before the Dutch Council advised them to flee for Spain, as the Germans approached French invasion.  They went from Spain to Portugal and then to the colony of Dutch Guiana, where they lived for two years.  Yollick resumed her painting, but still continued to focus on completing her studies. 

Yollick came to American in 1944 when a Dutch philanthropist offered her a job at the Netherlands Embassy in Washington DC.  There she met her husband, a general surgeon and ear, nose and throat specialist.  Over the years, they lived in St. Louis and Houston, moving to Dallas in 1957, where Dr. Yollick established a successful practice, and just recently retired.

It was when they moved to Dallas that Yollick began to paint more frequently and for fun.  She is inspired by colors and shapes, and she enjoys capturing them on the palate. Often when beginning a work of art, she does not know what she will paint.  She simply begins by placing her dark colors first, balancing them with light colors, and then filling in the space – A technique inspired through Betty Winn a well-known Dallas artist and Yollick’s instructor.  

Today, when she isn’t painting or spending time with her husband, Yollick speaks regularly at the Dallas Holocaust Museum where she educates children of the atrocities of World War II. 

“It is important for us to care for each other,” Yollick said.  “Never look down on others whose beliefs are different than your own, for you never know in the end who is right.”