“We then discovered that the youngest brother of my wife, he was a butcher and he had a shop near Wenceslaw Square [in Prague], and there was a smuggler’s line that lead from there all the way across the border. He had nothing to do with it, but people could meet up with one man in his shop, and the man had a connection to Zdíkov in the Šumava Mountains, to some journalist who lived in seclusion, and the journalist sometimes received a visit from Germans who were forcibly expelled. Like smugglers. And he mediated for the people he took with him and who paid him. They used the money to buy cigarette papers or what. And that was how we wanted to get over the borders.”
“So I went to the Ministry of Social Care on Palacký Square, I brought a copy of the Czech constitution with me, and I demanded to speak to some official who would be capable of discussing my problem with me. What happened? He said: ‘What’s the matter?’ I said: ‘I am citizen of Czechoslovakia, here is my citizenship card, and according to the constitution, paragraph so and so, I have the right to be employed. And because the action committee has expelled me from my studies, I cannot obtain my promised employment, and I cannot receive any other employment either, because no action committee could accept me with itself being persecuted for having a hostile attitude. And so on. Please, you’re the person responsible for the matter, tell me what you can do for me?’ - ‘Well that’s easy. If you don’t find any employment in six weeks, I’ll find some for you.’ I asked: ‘And what will that be?’ - ‘Digging dirt in the uranium mines.’ ”
“When I was little, I had governesses who cared for me. Those were wonderful people. They were Adventists. Do you know who that is? [Yes, Seventh Day Adventists]. Those are believers who also observe the Sabbath, and that’s why they have an interest in being employed in Jewish families. Well I had two of those. One was with me for three years, the other another three years. They were good friends. They spent time with me and brought me up. We kept in touch with them right until their deaths.”
“Then we had to cross the Vltava, and there’s a meadow on the other side and higher up another forest. He said: ‘That’s the most dangerous section. When we cross the Vltava, you have to run uphill, up the meadow and into the forest; and if you get stuck somewhere, you’re finished. We can’t help you.’ And when I reached the forest gasping for breath, I looked around for my wife and she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. So I said: ‘I have to go back for my wife.’ He said: ‘You mustn’t. It’s dangerous. You mustn’t. You just have to count her as a gonner. It’s not possible.’ I said: ‘That’s not an option.’ So I went back and found her collapsed from exhaustion. So I took the bag she had around her neck and dragged her uphill in a slow jog. And we made it.”
“The national committee in Kounice declared me a German and a collaborator, and the district council confiscated my property. Imagine that. You can’t imagine it. How did the people of Kounice, with some 1,200 inhabitants, a little village where everyone knows everyone, how did they come up with the idea to accuse me of being German and of collaborating? I had never even been there. And it was successful. It took me three years to clear myself. I had to do that. Just imagine it. It took me three years to get the property back. Despite the locals.”
Ing. Harry Pollak, Ph.D., was born on 24 February 1923 into a Jewish family in Dvůr Semtín near Votice. After primary school, he attended a grammar school in Prague and then Litoměřice, where he completed the junior four-year cycle. He began senior grammar school in Nîmes, France, where he also graduated. In 1940 he joined the 1st Czechoslovak Division in France. He reached England via Gibraltar, and the end of the war found him in Dunkirk as part of the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Mechanised Brigade. He does not enjoy speaking of his war experience, though - the first reason is the lack of respect within the Czechoslovak foreign army, the second its bad organisation. After the war he returned to Czechoslovakia and studied at the Technical University in Prague. Following the Communist coup in 1948, Harry Pollak was expelled from university shortly before graduating. In 1949 he and his wife escaped over the Šumava Mountains into West Germany, ending up in Camp Valka near Nuremberg. His wish was to reach Britain, but he and his wife had to overcome numerous administrative obstacles before setting foot in London in February 1950. In Britain Harry Pollak gained employment as a draughtsman, later stepping up to the position of head of an air-conditioning factory and subsequently becoming a high flyer. He was accepted to the firm Mead Carney, becoming an expert on „value analysis“. He later moved on to Dunlop, thence to the directorship of a London bank specialising in rescuing large companies. By that time he was a renowned consultancy expert, and he received an honorary citizenship from London. He went freelance as an independent value analyst. The company he saved include Krupp, Eisenwerke, IBM, and Aston Martin. In the year 2000 Pollak went into retirement, three years later he obtained a doctorate from the University of Economics in Prague, where he lectured. He lived in Switzerland. He died in 2014.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
