This past summer, the librarians of the Mina Rees Library were pleasantly surprised to learn that the Library had been included in the will of a former Graduate Center librarian, Helga Bravmann Feder (1927-2022).

Helga Bravmann was born in Würzburg (Bavaria), Germany, in 1927. Her father was Jewish and her mother a Christian. Helga’s father, like so many German Jews, was secular and did not practice his religion. (Helga’s father and Henry Kissinger’s mother were cousins.)

The rise of fascism in the 1930s radically changed Germany. In 1938, Kristallnacht (“Night of the Broken Glass”), a state-back, organized attack on the Jewish community throughout Germany, signaled to Helga’s father that they needed to flee. They moved to France but unfortunately the country fell in 1940 to the Nazis. The Nazi-controlled Vichy government in 1941 began arresting all foreign-born Jews. Helga, then thirteen years old, witnessed her father’s arrest. With no financial means of support, Helga and her mother were forced to return to Würzburg where they lived with her maternal grandmother until the end of the war. Helga’s Jewish ethnicity was kept a secret.

Helga’s father was interned at Camp Gurs, 50 miles from the Spanish border. Many tried to escape but, with no money or knowledge of the terrain or language, most were captured and returned to Gurs. Miraculously, Helga’s father escaped and, after crossing Spain, ended up in Portugal. It was there that he was able to book passage to the United States.

It was in late 1945 that Helga met her future husband, Yitzhak (Issy) Feder. He was 33; she was 19. Issy had lost many of his family in the Holocaust: his father during Kristallnacht; his mother was deported to Poland and died in the Warsaw ghetto; his first wife and the rest of his extended family also perished. Issy was arrested in 1939 and imprisoned in Dachau until the liberation. Only Issy’s two younger brothers, who left Germany before the war, survived. One went to the United States, the other to Palestine.

At the time Helga met Issy, he was an interpreter for the American military authorities in Germany. Both desired to leave for the United States. Permits were obtained, and the pair were married in Würzburg on May 24, 1946. In February 1947, they sailed for the United States.

It was in New York that Helga was finally reunited with her father, who had started a business on Wall Street. Two years later, Helga’s mother came to the United States and was reunited with her husband. The family remained close. At some point, the family moved to a house in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, where Helga lived for the rest of her life. For a time, Helga worked as a manicurist in a women’s salon while Issy sold suits in a store. Later, Issy joined his father-in-law in his business, and became an expert in bonds. Helga and Issy obtained U.S. citizenship in 1952.

In true Renaissance style, Helga decided to go to college. At age 40, she graduated cum laude from Hunter College in 1967 with a B.A. in German Literature and European History. In 1968, she obtained her Masters from Columbia University, further advancing her studies in German Literature. While at Columbia, Helga served as a Faculty Fellow in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures (1967-1972) and taught part-time German language and literature courses there and at Barnard College. In 1972, Helga completed her coursework for a Ph. D. and, in 1973, she received her Masters in Library Science from Columbia.

In addition, Helga won two prizes in 1966 while an undergraduate at Hunter: the Ottendorfer Major Prize (best record in the German major) and the Herman Ridder Memorial Prize (best original essay(s) in German on German lyrical poetry of the 20^th century). Helga was also nominated for a Wilson National Fellowship, which encourages undergraduates to consider a career in college teaching. In 1968, Helga was given the New York State Regents Fellowship Award. She was in the Nu Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and Delta Phi Alpha (the American Association of Teachers of German’s honors society for college students).

It was during Helga’s tenure as a faculty fellow that her beloved Issy died in August, 1970, at 57 of a rare disease. She continued to be active, finishing her education and engaging in social activities. Helga and Issy had traveled to Europe and Israel several times. She continued to travel, decorating her beloved Riverside house with objects from her travels.

Helga worked in the Mina Rees Library as a faculty librarian for over a decade. There is only one person still working in the Library who remembers Helga. Rose Ochoa is currently the Acquisitions Assistant, and she has fond memories of Helga. Rose remembers a smiling, supportive, woman with a great attitude. She hardly spoke of her private life, at least to Rose, and Helga never talked negatively about anyone—and, conversely, Rose never heard a negative remark made about Helga.

“She was always encouraging to others to lift their spirits. She was not loud, and spoke in a gentle, soft and kind voice.”

Helga served in Reference, which was then called Reader Services. She joined the Library Association of the City University of New York (LACUNY) in 1977 and served in several positions. She was the chair of the Institute Committee (1978/79). This committee and its sub-committees planned the annual Spring Institute (now the LACUNY Institute) by selecting the topic of the Institute, its speakers, arranged the facilities, oversaw registration of attendees, solicited exhibitors, and publicized the program. In addition, Helga served as the chair of the following LACUNY committees: Programs (1979/80); the Nominating Committee (1979/80), co-chair of the LACUNY/SUNYLA (State University of New York Librarians Association) Committee on Cooperation and Coordination, 1979-1981; chair of the METRO/LACUNY seminar on database searching in the humanities and social sciences (held October 1, 1980); member of the PSC/CUNY Librarians Committee on Contract Negotiations, (1979/80). In 1981, Helga ran for the position of vice-president/president elect of LACUNY, serving as president, 1982/83.

Once retired, Helga continued to remain active. She traveled, and her diverse activities included folk dancing (attending dances on weekends), concerts (classical, country and folk), visiting museums (had subscriptions to the Met, MOMA, and the Guggenheim), and regularly went to folk and music festivals. She also had an interest in anthropology. She belonged to the New York Chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club. Politically aware, Helga had very liberal views, consistently supported the Democratic Party, detested Donald Trump, and signed countless petitions for many political causes, ecological issues and the protection of wild animals and animals in captivity. In addition, she advocated for the preservation of the national parks, Planned Parenthood, and fought to reduce food waste.

Helga joined Twitter in 2011 (to distribute petitions) and Facebook in 2014. It was there that Helga described herself: “I am an independent, active woman and like being retired. Enjoy living in New York City but also love being in nature. Travel a lot. Her Facebook page proudly exclaimed her mantra, “Carpe Deim (Seize the Day!).”

Helga not only left money to the Mina Rees Library but also to New York Public Library, the Library’s partner research institution. In the NYPL Annual Report for 2010, Helga is listed under “Bequest Intentions” section. It is quite possible that she also left money to the many of the organizations that she had been involved with throughout her active life.

Traditionally, the library profession draws people who want to help others. Like teachers, nurses, and doctors, the academic librarian track ultimately supports the promotion, organization, and preservation of knowledge as well as the dissemination of that information to those who seek it. All people-supporting professions ultimately seek to make people’s lives better. Helga, not only by her service as a faculty librarian but also as a human being, is still giving to others even after her death.

The librarians and staff of the Mina Rees Library are proud to count Helga Bravmann Feder as one of our forebearers in the library profession. May her memory continue to inspire all who serve to assist our students and faculty in their research needs, and to ultimately help make the world a better place for all.

Special thanks to Helga’s nephew, Jon Feder, who wrote a biography about Helga’s fascinating early life and activities outside of CUNY, which served as a source for this post.

Thanks also to Rose Ochoa for her recollections of Helga.

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