Felix Pollak (November 11, 1909 – November 19, 1987) was born in Vienna, Austria to a Jewish family. He studied law and theater at the University of Vienna. In 1938, Austria was annexed by the Third Reich, forcing Pollak and his family to flee for refuge. Pollak ended up in the United States, where his brother and mother would eventually settle. His father would die while in England. When Pollak arrived in New York, he was aided by the Jewish Refugee Committee. They sent him to Buffalo, NY, and set him up with a clerk position in the Buffalo Public Library on the condition that he would attend library school. He enrolled at the University of Buffalo and earned his BA in Library Science in 1941. For the next two years, he worked as a librarian in the Buffalo Public Library.
In 1943, Pollak was drafted into the US Army. He worked in the prisoner of war camps, translating for German soldiers. He was discharged in 1945 and shortly enrolled at the University of Michigan. He earned a MA in Library Science in 1949. Pollak worked at Northwestern University as a rare books librarian from 1949 until 1959. He married Sara Allen in 1950. He received a J.D. degree from the University of Vienna in 1953.
After recovering from a heart attack in 1958, Pollak left Northwestern and came to UW-Madison as the Curator of Rare Books (now Special Collections). He remained until his retirement in 1974, due to his failing eyesight. While the Curator, Pollak was in charge of and further developed the Sukov Collection (now the Little Magazine Collection). The Sukov Collection was purchased in the late 1950s, which was further expanded upon during Pollak's time as the curator. Pollak died in 1987.
