When Subhas Chandra Bose vanished in 1945, he left behind a secret wife. She could have lived as royalty in India, but chose to work a telephone switchboard in post-war Vienna.
Emilie Schenkl met Bose in Vienna in 1934 when she was hired as his secretary. The two fell in love and secretly married in Bad Gastein, Austria, in December 1937. However, Bose’s intense commitment to India's freedom struggle meant their time together was exceptionally brief. In early 1943, just months after the birth of their only child, Anita, Bose embarked on a perilous U-boat journey from Europe to Southeast Asia. He left his wife and infant daughter in war-torn Europe and never saw them again before his fatal plane crash in Taiwan in August 1945.
When the Second World War ended, Schenkl found herself a single mother. She had no immediate financial support from her husband's political network. Rather than capitalizing on Bose’s immense fame, she quietly set about providing for her daughter. Taking a job in a trunk exchange at the Austrian state telecommunications office, she worked long shifts as a switchboard operator and clerk. She maintained this career for most of her life to ensure she could raise and educate Anita on her own terms.
Because the marriage had been kept a strict secret, the Bose family in India was completely unaware of Emilie's existence for years. It was only after the war that Bose’s brother, Sarat Chandra Bose, learned of her and traveled to Vienna in 1948 to formally welcome her into the extended family. Despite this acceptance, Schenkl respectfully declined offers of financial assistance, insisting on remaining entirely self-sufficient.
Perhaps the most defining aspect of Schenkl’s later life was her absolute refusal to step into the public eye. After India gained independence, Subhas Chandra Bose was revered as a monumental national hero. Had Schenkl traveled to India, she would have been bombarded by politicians and the press. She consciously chose never to visit the country, feeling her place was in Europe and harboring a deep distaste for the political maneuvering that surrounded her husband's legacy.
Schenkl never remarried. She lived a quiet, private life until she passed away in March 1996 in Germany at the age of 85.