Emilie Schenkl

Taken from Brothers against Raj by Leonard Gordon - When Bose returned to Vienna in June 1934, he had secured a contract from the British publisher Lawrence Wishart to write a book on Indian politics with a deadline later in the year, and he looked for a secretary, a trustworthy person, who could help him with the preparation of the book. Through an Indian doctor in Vienna, Dr. Mathur, Bose was introduced to Emilie Schenkl, a young Viennese woman. She was born on Dec 26, 1910, to an Austrian Catholic family. Her paternal grandfather was a shoemaker, her father a veterinarian. Her father was not eager for her to have a formal education, but late in the First World War, he permitted her to attend primary school and then begin secondary school. Displeased that she was not learning grammar well, he sent her to a nunnery for four years to continue her education. She thought briefly of becoming a nun, but dropped the idea. She attended two more schools for a year each and completed her education when she was about twenty.