Felix Pollak

Who was Felix Pollak?

Felix Pollak was an American librarian, translator, and poet.

Pollak was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1909 to Geza Pollak and Helene Schneider Pollak. A Jew and liberal anti-fascist, he studied law and theater at the University of Vienna before emigrating to the United States following the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich. He briefly worked as a door-to-door salesman in New York City before enrolling at the University of Buffalo, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in library science in 1941.

While working as a librarian, Pollak was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943, where he worked as a translator for German prisoners of war. After the war, he enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he received a master's degree in library science in 1949. Pollak also received a Dr.Jur. from the University of Vienna in 1953.

From 1949 to 1959, Pollak worked as a rare books librarian at Northwestern University. He became a rare books librarian at the University of Wisconsin in 1959, where he remained until his retirement in 1974. One of his primary duties was maintaining and developing the Sukov collection of literary magazines