After finishing gymnasium in Haarlem, he went to study at Columbia University in New York after which he took dental exams back in the Netherlands in 1948.

In 1954, he obtained his doctorate in oral surgery cum laude in Hamburg, West Germany, with the thesis Die Zahnextraktion in bakteriologischer Sicht.

In it Polanen was portrayed as an unimportant figure in which it was also subtly mentioned that his brother Pieter, as the leader of a gang, had committed attacks against government personnel.

[citation needed] Reference was made to a clumsily executed failed attack against J. Pengel.

[2] He would remain in office until the end of February 1974[citation needed] after which he worked for some time as a dentist in Aerdenhout, North Holland.