Magda Tisza (6 July 1922 - 12 October 2020), born Magda Pollaczek in Vienna to mathematicians Hilda Geiringer Pollaczek and Felix Pollaczek. Came to the United States with her mother in 1939 after Geiringer-Pollaczek was offered a lecturer position at Bryn Mawr:
“Because the U.S. immigration law exempted professors and ministers from the restrictive quota system, the Bryn Mawr appointment enabled Geiringer to obtain a non-quota visa. Mother and daughter arrived in New York in November 1939.”
Tisza's skill with languages landed her an assignment with the O.S.S. after the War, when Hollywood director John Ford “arranged for Magda to go to Germany to scour film archives for pictorial evidence to be used against Nazi leaders who were soon to be tried at Nuremberg.”
According both to the Bryn Mawr alumnae note excerpted above and her obituary, Tisza was one of the founders and managers of the well-known annual Bryn Mawr book sale. She was later also an instructor at MIT in languages. Tisza was evidently also working for the bookselling firm Ars Libri and around this time “spent the next 20 years as an internationally-known book dealer specializing in German literature and Judaica.” At the time of her death, she was an emeritus member of the A.B.A.A.
Her obituary also notes that her children remember “Magda's sole extravagance – her flashy Mustang convertibles.”
