Reporting was second nature to her. Tessel Pollmann went everywhere. She made easy contact, was a good listener, did not let herself be tamed and had a keen eye for detail. In the seventies and eighties she worked for the newsmagazine Free Netherlandswhich was the standard in journalism at the time.
Man and his worries were central to Pollmann. It resulted in a stream of articles, a dozen books and a dissertation. On a variety of topics: from civil servants (‘You speak to the municipality’) and Moluccans (Istori-Istori Maluku. The story of the Moluccans) to middle class people (Better a little boss than a big servant) and the Salvation Army. She revealed that a large part of the gifts went to her own church work.
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Her journalistic streak also came in handy when she was associated with the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Niod as an associate researcher. The combination of questioning and sifting through cash books, deeds and archives yielded a lot. NSB leader Anton Mussert and his clique has exposed them as common thieves.
Peter Romijn, long-time head of research at Niod, calls Pollmann the grand lady of social history. “She had a great eye for people in distress. She stepped between them, asking questions and exposing their problems.’ It was not only curiosity that drove her, says Romijn. ‘She felt responsible for the functioning of society. If everyone was heard, we’d be better off.’
family doctor
She was seventh in a Catholic Amsterdam family of twelve children with a practice at home. There was a maid, and in the street was one car, her father’s Fiat. Daughter Judith: ‘Twelve children who all lacked attention. That marked her. She continued to long for the attention and confirmation she had missed as a child.’
Pollmann in her memoirs about when she was ill as a child: ‘Mother came to have a look when she was going around the bedrooms in the morning and if you were lucky she would remember to send a child upstairs with a plate at the hot dinner. cold stew or something. Father only came when you were ill.’
As a result, Pollmann was independent from an early age. She changed high school without talking to her parents. Her childhood experiences came in handy in her work, Judith says. ‘If someone said: it’s like a big family here, Tessel knew enough. Then I’ll know what time it is, she said, and a little later the stories about quarrels and abuses came.’
In 2016, Pollmann was struck by non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She got under the disease, but the chemotherapy had destroyed her. There was not much work for the time being, and she sank into a depression. Judith: ‘The urge to prove herself continued to haunt her.’
Because she wasn’t working, Pollmann feared loneliness. She hung a note on the bulletin board at Albert Heijn around the corner in Utrecht. ‘I’m looking for a buddy to drink coffee or go for a walk or something. Payment no problem. I’m 77 and I have a disability.’ Someone snapped a picture of it, posted it on Facebook, and the call went viral. Coincidentally, this is National Loneliness Week. Suddenly Pollmann was the loneliest elderly person in the Netherlands. The call resulted in new acquaintances to whom she has benefited a lot in her last years.
Pollmann died on August 12, aged 82. She was working on a book about the world of Jos van Wel, her grandfather from Helmond, who caused a stir there around 1900 with his columns about the exploited workers. She still needed one more sheet, she said a few weeks before her death.