Emanuel Polak, born in 1919, was a son of Gompel Polak and Bloeme van Kolm. 2 July 1941 he married in Amsterdam Roza Barber, born in 1922 and the youngest daughter in the family of Manus Barber and Flora van Velzen.
Since 27 January 1934, Emanuel Polak lived at President Brandstraat 44 1st floor with his parents, but moved after his marriage in the same street to house nr. 18 3rd floor , where Roza Barber, her mother and her brother Isaac lived already since 1937.
Roza’s parents divorced 21 May 1935; since 17 February 1935 Roza, her mother and brother went living in at President Brandstraat 18 2nd floor with her sister Sara, who was married to Coenraad Knegje but they moved 31 May 1937 from the 2nd to the 3rd floor. (18 3rd floor). Roza’s father Manus Barber died two years after the divorce, 21 July 1937 and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen.
Emanuel Polak and his wife Roza Polak-Barber were put on transport 12 February1943 to concentration camp Vught. Emanuel was deported from Vught to Westerbork 21 March 1944 and from there to Auschwitz. Eventually he has lost his life in the early days of May 1945 somewhere in Europe and his date of death is officially established as 2 May 1945, but it is unknown where.
From “The Philips Command in Camp Vught, pages 154 and 155 by P.W.Klein and Justus van de Kam”: …… three weeks after the letter from Rauter, on Monday 20 March 1944, again a big alarm sounded at the Philips Command. Laman Trip heard it by telephone from Braakman:“all male Jews are leaving tonight”. The transport left indeed. It has, as usual his load of 317 man and boys unloaded in Westerbork. “There we were driven into the so-called penal barack, an unbelievably dirty mess. On the other hand, Vught seemed to have been a recreation resort”.
However, Roza Barber was deported from Vught via Westerbork to Auschwitz on 3 June 1944. From page 155:”The camp commander Hüttig on his turn had done his utmost to prevent surviving of Jews.But the night of 2-3 June 1944 Hüttig struck devastating. Already one week before – 24 May – the Philips Command had been destructively hit. The collapse was then a matter of week.
On 3 June 1944 the last transport from Vught left for Auschwitz via Westerbork with 499 “Philips-Jews”, of whom eventually a part has been rescued by the Swedish Red Cross, whereby Roza Barber have been able to survive the horrors of the Holocaust . She returned from Sweden to Amsterdam 28 Augustus 1945.
City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Flora van Velzen, archive cards of Roza Barber and Emanuel Polank; residence cards of among others President Brandstraat 18; From the book The Philips Command in Camp Vught, pages 154 and 155 by P.W. Klein and Justus van de Kam, Contact 2003 and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Emanuel Polak and Roza Polak-Barber.