Henri Polak

Targeted as a Jew, a marxist, and a trade unionist, Polak was arrested by the Nazis in 1940 but died early in 1943 before he could be deported.

[2] In 1886, following an argument with his father over a girl he was seeing,[2] Polak left his native Holland for London where he continued to work as a gem cutter.

[1] It was there Polak was exposed to the ideas of Marxism as well as to the history and practice of the British trade union movement.

He joined the Social Democratic League (SDB), a pioneer Dutch Marxist political party in that same year.

[1] Polak gained fame as the founder and first chairman of the General Dutch Diamond Workers' Union (ANDB), established in 1894.

[2] With his health failing, he was transferred to another facility at Wassenaar, from which he was unexpectedly released in July 1942, just as deportations of Dutch Jews to Nazi death camps was beginning.