Heinz Pollak

Born:	06-18-1911
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled student

Heinz POLLAK, born June 18, 1911 in Vienna (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') in Vienna, Citizenship: Austria), son of Leo (Leopold) Pollak (businessman, branch manager) and Ella, born Lewinson, grew up until age 14 in the 19th district of Vienna.
The family moved 1925 to Berlin. Being the eldest son, Heinz Pollak had to interrupt his school education to start an apprenticeship in order to financially support his family.  Two years later he could resume his studies and graduated from high school in the fall of 1931. Being Austrian it was cheaper for him to study in his own country, so he returned to Vienna and enrolled the School of Philosophy of Vienna University to study German language and literature Studies in the winter semester 1931/32. He wanted to become a writer and a journalist. However, due to his dissatisfaction with the courses offered, he decided to quit his studies in 1932 and moved back to Berlin, where he began to study medicine in the winter semester 1932/33. After the seizure of power of the NSDAP (The National Socialist German Workers' Party) in Germany in January 1933 he went back to Vienna University for the spring term 1933, since the political situation there was considered to be more stable.  Heinz Pollak was an active member of the socialist student body and lived in various rooms in sub tenancy. His last place of residency was Tendlergasse 3/21 in the 9th district. In the fall term 1937/38 he registered in the 10th semester at the Faculty of Medicine. (His 'Absolutorium'  (certificate of study completion) was issued on November 3rd, 1938). Heinz Pollak was able to finish his studies on October 31st, 1938 within the framework of a non-Aryan promotion ('Nichtarierpromotion'). “I had just finished my second viva voce examination ("Rigorosum") and was starting the third and last stage in my medical studies; I only had to take exams in surgery, dermatology, psychiatry, forensic medicine and ophthalmology when a ruling came that prohibited Jews to set foot on the university. I then spent a long time in Berlin, where I worked at the bookkeeping office of my uncle Fritz. I had to kill time somehow. It was already clear to me that I had to emigrate as soon as possible but I was not completely ready for it and I was not good at anything. Perhaps I was waiting for a miracle to happen. But I could hardly believe it when this miracle actually occurred.
I went back to Vienna in August and went to the university every day to see if perhaps something had changed in my favour. And indeed, on September 3rd there was a sign at the Anatomy Institute saying that all Jewish medicine students were allowed to finish their third 'Rigorosum' by October 15th!
I have no idea why we were allowed to finish our studies. Someone must have thought that there were so few of us anyhow, just twelve or thirteen students, that they would not have anything to regret by giving us their approval. There were still people who wanted to project a good image. Of course we studied as hard as we could in four to five weeks but anyway it was impossible to grasp so much material in such a short time. I remember how a student began to cry because she did not know why the foetus does not breathe in the uterus, such a simple question! But somehow even this girl passed.
But the strangest thing is this: actually, we were already physicians, since we had already finished all our viva voce examinations, and therefore, we should have a graduation ceremony. But in October 1938 that would be going too far.
It went like this: we were all in the dean’s office, since we were told that it was there where we were going to receive our diplomas. Suddenly, Mr. Pernkopf, Dean of the faculty, appeared in civilian clothes, without wearing his Dean’s robes, a Nazi of the first hour, and addressed us as follows: “My young colleagues, you have all finished your medical studies, I will have your diplomas delivered to you. We know you are not entitled to exercise your profession and therefore you will have to leave the country. I wish you a successful career. Once abroad show what you have learned at Vienna University and be true to the Alma Mater Viennensis!” POLLAK 1994, 52-54. At the beginning of 1939 Heinz Pollak fled near Aachen over the border to Belgium and worked for a year and a half as a physician at the Jewish Committee for Refugees in Antwerp.
When Belgium was occupied by the German 'Wehrmacht' on Mai 10, 1940 Heinz Pollak was arrested and later on deported to the detention centre St. Cyprien in France. He was then transferred to Gurs, France, where he worked as a doctor for detainees. 
In 1941 he founded the organization 'Amitié Chrétienne' under the auspices of the archbishop of Lyon’s so-called reception centres ('Aufnahmezentren'), where refugees were allowed to move about fairly freely within the ambit of a few kilometres. Thanks to their medical competencies, Heinz Pollak and Ilse Leo belonged to the first 57 inmates that were transferred from Gurs to the reception centre of Chansaye in the Department Rhône on November 25, 1941. There, Ilse Leo, whom Pollak had met at the detention centre, and who later on became his wife, got pregnant and bore her daughter Susanne Edith on September 2nd 1942 in Lyon. While she was staying for two weeks in Lyon Heinz Pollak was warned by the French police that there were imminent waves of arrests, and he was able to go into hiding.  Three weeks after childbirth Heinz Pollak visited his wife and daughter secretly and then went together with other refugees to Lyon, where he received false documents ("Henri Poulain", later "Preller", "Tréflère").
Ilse and Susanne Pollak still had to stay for a year in Chansaye and later came to the reception centre of Vic-sur-Cère in the Département Cantal. Ilse Pollak worked as a nurse in a Jewish children’s home in Limoges from March until the liberation in August 1944. 
In Lyon Heinz Pollak contacted the opposition group of the Austrian Communist Party and became a member in the M.O.I. (Main-d'œuvre immigrée), an underground organization of the F.T.P. (Francs-tireurs et partisans). Since June 1944 he carried out concealed work as an interpreter for the German administration of the army’s living quarters in Narbonne, transmitting information to the Résistance and supporting them financially. In March 1944 he was transferred to Carcassonne. In June 1944, as his group in Lyon was uncovered by the Gestapo, he escaped, and a few days later he contacted an opposition unit of the Maquis in the Cevenne Mountains, where he cooperated with the partisans with his work as an interpreter and a physician until the liberation in August 1944.
In September 1944 his group moved to the liberated city of Alès. There Heinz Pollak had his first reencounter with his wife Ilse and his daughter Susanne. He was asked by the Communist Party to set up a group of the Austrian Liberation Front in Toulouse. In April 1945 the party instructed him to return to Austria. His group walked through the Alps towards Italy and reached Austria from Yugoslavia. Due to the prevailing shortage of medical staff at the beginning of the post-war period, the Health Authorities of Vienna appointed Heinz Pollak as public health officer for the second district. In August 1945 he obtained a doctor’s practice as well as a residence in Kaisermühlen (Viennas 22nd district), and his family was able to move to Vienna in December 1945. Heinz and Ilse Pollak officially married at the civil registry office of Floridsdorf, Vienna. Their second child, Thomas, was born in 1947 and their daughter Elisabeth was born in 1952.  At age 60 Ilse Pollak did her high school degree and five years later she became a psychologist.
Heinz Pollak was honoured by the Medical Faculty in 1998.
He died in 2003.

Lit.: information of his daughter Susanne Pollak 2009; POLLAK 1994; Jewish Traces - An ordinary exile; USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, University of Southern California, Interview 49162; KNIEFACZ/POSCH 2017a; KNIEFACZ/POSCH 2017c.

Katharina Kniefacz