Friedrich Pordes

Friedrich PORDES, born on April 30^th, 1916 in Vienna/Austro-Hungarian empire (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), son of Efroim vel Ferdinand Pordes (1880-?, meat commissioner in the wholesale market hall), and Jenny Pordes, née Fuchs (1889-?), lived in Vienna's 3^rd district, Hintzerstraße 1, was last enrolled in the fall term 1937/38 at the Philosophical School in the 3^rd year of his studies and attended lectures in chemistry.

In 1938, after the takeover of power of National-Socialism he was forced to quit his studies for racist reason and to leave the University of Vienna.

He had to flee Vienna and was able to emigrate to Shanghai via Denmark in 1938, his sister Olga Pordes (1909-?) managed to emigrate to Palestine and their parents were finally able to emigrate from Trieste to Palestine on August 30^th, 1939 with the help of the emigration department of the Jewish Community.
In Shanghai, Friedrich Pordes later married his Viennese fellow student Annemarie Hecht (div. Schwarz). They had two sons and moved to the British crown colony of Hong Kong in 1950, where his wife, who had set up and successfully ran a kindergarten in Shanghai, now worked as a language teacher at the German Goethe Institute and in a Swiss-German school before returning to Vienna in 1997, where she died in 2002.

Frederick - now Frédérick - Pordes founded a pharmaceutical company, which was entered in the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce register in 1951 as "Frederick Pordes Import/Export" and became "Frederick Pordes & Company (Pharmaceuticel), Ltd" in February 1958 and existed until 1991.

Frédérick Pordes died on January 23^rd, 1992 in Mougins, Alpes-Maritimes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") PHIL 1937–1938; Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce List of Members 1959; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 451; www.genteam.at; www.myheritage.at.

Herbert Posch