Susan Pollack

Susan Pollack OBE (born 9 September 1930) is a Hungarian-born British Holocaust survivor and Holocaust educational speaker. During the Holocaust, she was interned at Auschwitz-Birkenau for 10 weeks before being sent to Guben in Germany to work in an armaments factory, and later, by death march, to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she was liberated by the British Army on 15 April 1945.

Early life Pollack was born Zsuzsanna Blau on 9 September 1930 in Felsögöd, Hungary into a Jewish family. Her father, Erno Blau, ran a business selling wood and coal. There were 16 Jewish families living in the small village, which had a population of c. 3000. At an early age she noticed a rise in antisemitism in her town, including laws introduced from 1938. Her brother Laszlo (Laci) was restricted from attending further education due to a law limiting the number of Jewish students attending to two per cent. With the onset of World War II in September 1939, antisemitism became widespread, including radio propaganda and physical attacks. Laci was beaten at a scout meeting. After the Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944, Jews were made to wear a yellow badge. After being separated from her family, Pollack, alongside hundreds of other young women and girls, were stripped and had their heads shaved. She was not tattooed with a number because she was being held with hundreds of others to be deported to other sites. She shared a barracks with 800 young women and each day was forced to parade naked with the other women in front of Josef Mengele, who selected some of them for experiments. Pollack remained in the camp for ten weeks, working as a slave labourer with limited food. She was then transported to Guben, Germany to work in an armaments factory.

In May 2015, Pollack gave evidence at the trial of former Auschwitz SS guard Oskar Gröning.

Honours In the 2016 New Year Honours, she was appointed MBE for services to Holocaust Education, and in the 2023 New Year Honours, she was appointed OBE for services to Holocaust Education and Awareness.

Other media In January 2022, the premiere of Pollack's life story was portrayed on stage in a play titled "Kindness", by the theatre company Voices of the Holocaust. Since its premiere, ‘Kindness: A Legacy of the Holocaust’ co-authored by Mark Wheeller has been seen by over 30,000 students in schools across the UK.