Emilie Schenkl

Emilie Schenkl was born on 26 December 1910 in Vienna, in an Austrian Catholic family. She started her primary schooling towards end of the Great War. Later on, she was enrolled in a nunnery by her father who was unhappy with her progress in school. Then after deciding against becoming a nun, Schenkl went back to school and completed her education.

She got married to Subhash Chandra Bose in 1937 and gave birth to his daughter, Anita Bose Pfaff. After surviving the war with her daughter, she started working shifts in the Trunk Office to support her family. She also met Sarat Bose and his family in Vienna and was welcomed by them into the Bose family although she never visited India.

Emilie Schenkl died in March 1996, at the age of 85.

Emilie Schenkl first met Subhash Chandra Bose in Vienna in 1934, through Dr. Mathur, their mutual friend. Since Schenkl possessed strong English language, communication, and typing skills, she was hired by Subhash Chandra Bose to help him in writing his book ‘The Indian Struggle’. Soon, both got emotionally close to each other. While Bose was in Berlin, he even requested the German government to help her come from Vienna. After this, the couple’s ties deepened and they got married in 1937 as per Hindu traditions.

A few years later, on 29 November 1942, a daughter, Anita Bose Pfaff was born to them. The following year, Bose left Schenkl and Anita to travel to Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia in order to form the Provisional Government of Free India as well the Indian National Army. Then on 18 August 1945, he died in a plane crash in Taiwan while trying to escape to Dairen (now known as Dalian) on Manchurian peninsula. In her nine years of marriage to Bose, she had spent less than three years with him.