Max van Dam

His father was a certified meat inspector who became the director of the cooperative store De Dageraad, literal translation The Dawn, in Winterswijk, where he had a seat on the town council for the Dutch Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP).

In this period his life evolved against the background of the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and the associated anti-semitism, a growing concern of Van Dam and his acquaintances.

Van Dam primarily lived in Antwerp but moved frequently between the Netherlands and Belgium and also travelled to Italy and France, to develop his painting skills and improve on his social awareness.

That same year he designed the poster for the Demonstration for Socialism and Democracy, organised, for September 16, by the SDAP and the Nederlands Verbond van Vakverenigingen, the Dutch Association of Trade Unions.

[2][4][5] Towards the end of his period at the Royal Academy the relationship with Opsomer deteriorated due to stylistic and personal disagreements and Van Dam returned to Amsterdam, resolved to prepare a submission for the ‘’Prix de Rome’’, an encouragement prize for young artists.

Another survivor, Ursula Stern, mentioned in her post-war statements that Heinrich Himmler had posed for a portrait by Van Dam on an inspection tour of the extermination camp and its gassing operations.

When approximately 70 Dutch men assigned to slave-labour in the camp were murdered, following a betrayed escape attempt, he was exempt from these reprisal killings.

Schelvis concluded this based on statements by Alexander Pechersky, who was emphatic in his declarations never to have met Van Dam because the painter had already been killed prior to his own arrival in Sobibor, on September 23, 1943.

[13] Christiaan Roosen cited André Glavimans' observation, from Elsevier, March 1, 1947: "Little of Max van Dam remains but it is enough to give him a place among the painters of his generation.

Roosen includes a quotation from Jan Koenraads who wrote in Het Vrije Volk on May 12, 1966: "All his works breathe sensitivity, composure and a longing for pure aesthetics."

Roosen writes that Koenraads had described, in a review published in Elsevier two days later, ""The exhibition had given him a sour sensation because in civilised Europe" it had been possible for a budding painter "to be torn off as a branch from a tree.

""[14] Roosen also notes that a still life by Van Dam from the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam was included in the exhibition commemorating Jewish Artists who perished in the Holocaust, held in Tel Aviv, in 1968, on the twentieth anniversary of Israel.