Wolfgang Polak (* 1935), like Curt Bloch, was born in Dortmund. After his family’s apartment was destroyed during the pogrom night of November 9, 1938, his Jewish father and his mother—who had converted to Judaism in 1933 – emigrated with Wolfgang and his brother Joachim to the Netherlands the very next day. The illegal border crossing was followed by stays in Aalten and Rotterdam. In 1940, the Polak family was interned in the transit camp Westerbork. Thanks to the determined efforts of Wolfgang’s mother Hildegard, the family was able to leave the camp after almost two and a half years and move into a small apartment in Amsterdam. There they experienced the liberation in 1945. In the mid-1950s, Wolfgang Polak returned to Dortmund. In the late 1980s, he became managing director of the Jewish Community there, a position he held for 25 years. In recognition of his contributions to Jewish-Christian dialogue, Polak was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
By chance, in September 2025, Wolfgang Polak met Eva Weyl – also a survivor of the Shoah – in a café in Dortmund. Weyl always carries a photograph from the camp school in Westerbork. It shows her as a small child sitting on a teacher’s lap. Wolfgang could hardly believe his eyes – for he too appeared in the photograph. After more than eighty years, a twist of fate brought the two former camp inmates together again.