Hansi Pauline Pollak, welfare worker and social activist, is born

Hansi Pauline Pollak was born in Johannesburg in 1905. She served as an officer in command of the Women Army Auxiliary Services during the World War II. In 1944 she was seconded to undertake welfare among refugees and displaced persons, as deputy director of welfare, for five United Nations Refugee Relief Association (UNRRA) camps in the Middle East. She was also director of field service among displaced persons in the British, French and American occupied zones in Germany. Pollack served as director of welfare services for the World Council of Churches from 1953 to 1954. She was also involved in working for the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) and served on the executive from 1954. She was elected vice president of the SAIRR on three separate occasions and also became an honorary member of the organisation. From 1962 she became a professor and head of the Department of Sociology and Social Work at a university. She later started an Educational Bursary Fund, aimed at offering education bursaries to less privileged children. In 1980 she was awarded an honorary doctorate in social science by the University of Natal in recognition of her community welfare work. Pollak died in Cape Town in 1982.