Fermin Rocker

Who was Fermin Rocker?

Fermin Rocker was a painter and book illustrator. He was the son of the anarcho-syndicalist theorists and activists Rudolf Rocker, a German, who had moved to London 1895, and Milly Witkop, a Ukrainian Jew, who had fled to the city in 1894.

Rocker was born in Stepney, London in 1907. He was named after the Spanish anarchist and mayor of Cádiz Fermín Salvochea. During his youth, he got to know many prominent anarchists such as Errico Malatesta and Peter Kropotkin and often attended anarchist meetings with his father. Later he would also meet Augustin Souchy, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Erich Mühsam, Nestor Machno, and Buenaventura Durruti. During this period he also started learning to draw from his half-brother Rudolph and exhibited great talent.

After World War I broke out, both his parents were arrested because of their anarchist activities, his father in 1914, his mother in 1916. In 1918, they were both released and extradited to the Netherlands, from where they moved to Berlin. There, Fermin Rocker was educated as a lithographer. His early works consisted in sketches, watercolor paintings, and graphic works. He also started mixing with the artist milieu in Berlin.