Else Pollak (geschiedene Shaw, verh. Chandler)
| Born: |
06-25-1916 |
| Faculty: |
Philosophical School |
| Category: |
Expelled student |
Else POLLAK (divorced SHAW, married CHANDLER), born on June 25th, 1916 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), daughter of Jakob Pollak (official of the Viennese Jewish Community) and Regine Pollak (nee Kohn), lived until 1938 in Wien 2, Große Sperlgasse 39a/14. She finished high school in 1936 ("Matura" at the Robert-Hamerling-Realgymnasium in Vienna's 8th district). She was enrolled finally in the fall term 1937/38 at the Philosophical School in the 1st year of her studies and took courses in English language and literature Studies and Psychology.
Else Pollak was able to emigrate to England as a nurse in September 1938. Her parents and her older sister Edith were deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt [Terezín/Czech Republic] in September 1942, where her parents died in 1943. Her sister was deported to Auschwitz [Oswiecim/Poland] in Oktober 1944, where she died. Her older brother Ferdinand Pollak was probably able to emigrate to Palestine.
In England Else Pollak worked as a nurse, first in Devon, then in other locations in England. She started to work at the Child Care Reserve in March 1944 and later was employed as a clerical assistant in the education officer’s department at the London County Council. After the end of the war she married an English man, Mr. Shaw. After they got divorced Else Pollak met Edmund Chandler, who was also working at the London County Council. They married and got a daughter, Esme, in 1955, whereupon she finished her job.
Else Chandler died on December 31st, 2008 in London.
Lit.: information of her daughter Esme Chandler 2010; other documents and photos in the Collection of Women’s Estates/Sammlung Frauennachlässe at the Department of History of the University of Vienna (No. 179), and in the Collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington; KNIEFACZ/POSCH 2017b.
Katharina Kniefacz and Herbert Posch
