I was made an honorary citizen of London, and thus my privileges include the right to herd a flock of sheep over London Bridge
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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 still goes to lecture. He is currently living in Switzerland, but he is planning to make a permanent move back to the Czech Republic.
