Amherst, Alex R. Page died peacefully of renal failure on Friday, May 4 at his home at the Applewood Retirement Community in Amherst at the age of 94. He was surrounded by his wife and two sons.

Alex was born in Košice, Czechoslovakia in 1923, the eldest son of Eugene and Sonya Polacšek. In 1926, his family moved to Berlin, Germany, where Alex’s father worked in real estate. Alex and his younger brother, Walter, attended public schools, studying in German, their native language. When the Nazi regime began persecuting Jews after 1933, they were forced to attend the Goldschmidt School, with an English curriculum to prepare students for emigration.

Alex and his family moved to London, England in 1937, where his father renovated townhouses and built bomb shelters. Alex and his brother attended a boarding school outside of London. As Czech citizens, Alex’s family was able to obtain the right to emigrate to the U.S and moved to Cleveland Ohio in 1940. Alex first helped support his family and attended night school. Then in late 1944 he joined the U.S. army and served in the Counter Intelligence Corps in Shanghai, China.

With support of the GI bill, Alex graduated with a BA from the University of Vermont and then attended Harvard University, graduating with a PhD in English in 1953. Alex taught at Rutgers University’s Newark campus and then came to the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1955 where he taught in English department for 33 years, retiring in 1987. Alex’s area of scholarship was 18th century English literature, especially Jane Austen, the modern novel and comparative literature. Among his publications, Alex translated works by Barlach, Goethe and the Czech dissident Pavel Kohout from German. He also wrote several radio plays which were produced in the United States and United Kingdom, including “The Cancelled Sky” about his relatives’ last train ride to Auschwitz. With his wife, Anita, he translated German plays for children.

Alex was a long-time participant in the Amherst Common Peace Vigil against the war in Vietnam.

Alex married Anita (ne Kumove) in 1961 and they would have celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary at the end of May. Beside Anita, Alex is survived by his sons Sasha and Max; grandchildren Benjamin, Zachary, Jonah, Aviva, and Ruthie; sister-in-law Hedy and her children David, Howard, and Susan and their children; and other relations in the US, Australia and the Czech Republic.

The family will sit Shiva on Sunday and Monday, May 6 and 7, at 84 McClellan Street, Amherst at 7 pm. Contributions can be made in his name to the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (211 Congress Street, Boston, MA 02110 or aclum.org) or the Pioneer Valley Worker Center (20 Hampton Ave #200, Northampton, MA 01060 or pvworkerscenter.org)