Helga Feder Bequest 2024

The Belle Zeller Scholarship Trust Fund deeply appreciates the generous bequest from Helga Feder.   The Trustees have designated a scholarship to be named in her honor, and awarded each year.

Helga Feder was born in Germany in 1927.   She died in 2022.   Helga survived the Holocaust, and married another survivor in 1946.   He died in 1970.   The couple came to the United States in 1947.   

Helga worked at several jobs until she decided to earn a college degree.  

She studied at Hunter College, graduating in 1967 with honors in German Studies, and earning membership in Phi Beta Kappa.

Helga already had shown an interest in library studies, and she earned an MA in that subject at Columbia University, followed by a second master’s degree in German literature.   In 1975, she published Reference Resources in German Literature:  An Annotated Guide.

She began her career in CUNY in 1973 as a librarian at the Graduate Center, and she worked there until her retirement in 1993.   Helga joined the Library Association of the City University of New York (LACUNY) in 1977, and served in several leadership positions including as chair of committees on Programs, Nominations and Contract Negotiations.  In 1982-83, she served as the president of LACUNY.   Beyond CUNY,  in 1981, Helga was the Chairwoman of the New York Chapter, Greater Metropolitan Area, of the Association of College and Research Libraries.  Clearly she was an active and engaged professional.

Helga was a long time member of the Professional Staff Congress, both while in service and after her retirement.  

Helga Feder described herself in 2011:  “Love NYC & nature.   Travel buff.   Retired, single, active, cultured, positive and adventurous.”   Her bequest will benefit students well into the future, and allow them also to pursue meaningful lives.