United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Dora Pollak (1902-2000) was born Dora Taussig in Hlinsko to Ludwig and Sophie Taussig. She married Richard Pollak (1897-1971), a doctor who had been born in Saaz (Žatec, Czech Republic) but moved to Vienna and obtained Austrian citizenship. Their son Hans Georg (John) was born in Vienna in 1933, and the family sailed to New York in 1938. Dora’s sister Edith (1904-1995) also sailed to New York with her husband, Frederick (Fritz) Fränkl, in 1940. Ludwig Taussig (1869-1943) was the son of Hlinsko industrialist Josef Taussig (1829-1905) and succeeded his father as proprietor of the firm Josef Taussig. Ludwig had ten brothers and sisters: Richard, Otto, and Karl Taussig, Sofie Schwarz, Amalie Böhm (married to Wilhelm Böhm), Emma Meisel (married to Wilhelm Meisel), Berta Kohn (married to Siegfried Kohn), and Hermine Pick (married Friedrich Pick). Ludwig was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 with his daughter and son-in-law Valerie (Valli, 1901-1944) and Friedrich (Fritz/Bedřich) Neumann (1890-approximately 1944), their children Marianne and Hans (Jan) Neumann, his brother and sister-in-law Otto and Frederike (Bedriska) Taussig, and their son Josef (Pepek) Taussig. Josef was a journalist with the youth magazine Hej Rup and participated actively in Theresienstadt’s cultural life. They were then transferred in 1943 and 1944 to Auschwitz where all but Josef and Marianne were killed. Josef survived a death march to Flossenbürg but perished there, and Marianne survived Gross-Rosen and Bergen-Belsen. Josef’s brother František, editor of the Communist newspaper Pravo in Brno, was executed by the Gestapo in 1941. Josef and František’s sister Gerda survived the war in India. Karl Taussig survived the war in Austria with his wife Annie, Richard Taussig survived the war in England with his wife Dora, and Ludwig’s sister-in-law Ella Fränkl survived the war in Switzerland with her husband Béla.
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The Dora Pollak family correspondence is arranged as a single series: I. Dora Pollak family correspondence, 1907-1954 (bulk 1937-1954)
The Dora Pollak family correspondence consists primarily of letters Dora and Richard Pollak received from family and friends in Czecholovakia, England, and Switzerland during and after the war. Wartime correspondence relates family news, documents efforts to emigrate from Czechoslovakia, describes preparations for deportation to Theresienstadt, and relays thanks for care packages delivered to Theresienstadt. Postwar correspondence summarizes wartime experiences and documents efforts to reclaim and manage family businesses and property lost during the war including the Joseph Taussig and Daniel Spitzer textile factories in Hlinsko and the Alois Neumann glass and crystal factory in Jihlava (Iglau). The collection includes a couple of poems by Holocaust victim Valerie Neumann.
Dora Pollak family correspondence