Gizella Bodnár (18 October 1926 – 6 February 2019) known as ''Repülős Gizi'' (“Airplane Gizi”) was a Hungarian

burglar Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murd ...

, who became known in the early 1950s. According to the media, she was infamous for using the then-frequent

domestic flight A domestic flight is a form of commercial flight within civil aviation where the departure and the arrival take place in the same country. Airports serving domestic flights only are known as domestic airports. Domestic flights are generally c ...

s to travel to different cities, break into houses there, then fly home, avoiding suspicion, since police would not suspect someone living that far away from the crime scene.

Life

She was the fourth of six children of a railroad engineer father and a housewife mother. She began to steal smaller things while still a child; she attributed her kleptomania to meningitis she survived at the age of six. Later she studied in Kassa, when

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

broke out; it was stress that was said to have brought out her kleptomania again. In the early 1950s, when Malév, the national airline company used to provide domestic flights between cities in Hungary, Bodnár often flew from

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Miskolc Miskolc ( , , ; Czech language, Czech and sk, Miškovec; german: Mischkolz; yi, script=Latn, Mishkoltz; ro, Mișcolț) is a city in northeastern Hungary, known for its heavy industry. With a population of 161,265 (1 Jan 2014) Miskolc is the ...

Debrecen Debrecen ( , is Hungary's second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the largest Hungarian city in the 18th century and ...

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also other alternative names) is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat of Csongrád-Csanád county. The University of Szeged is one of the m ...

Pécs Pécs ( , ; hr, Pečuh; german: Fünfkirchen, ; also known by other #Name, alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the fifth largest city in Hungary, on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the countr ...

and

Szombathely Szombathely (; german: Steinamanger, ; see also other alternative names) is the 10th largest city in Hungary. It is the administrative centre of Vas county in the west of the country, located near the border with Austria. Szombathely lies by t ...

, broke into houses, then flew back to the capital with the evening flight; although she herself always denied ever flying in a plane. She also committed break-ins abroad, in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. Part of her modus operandi was to go to a neighbour in the morning and borrow some condiments for cooking, which she would return in the evening, providing herself an

alibi An alibi (from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person, who is a possible perpetrator of a crime, of where they were at the time a particular offence was committed, which is somewhere other than where the crim ...

for two distinct parts of a day in a different town. She was arrested twenty-one times between 1948 and 2006, stood trial over 20 times and was convicted to a total of 40 years in prison. She spent a total of 16 years and 7 months in prison. Later she moved to the town of

Komárom Komárom (Hungarian: ; german: Komorn; la, Brigetio, later ; sk, Komárno) is a city in Hungary on the south bank of the Danube in Komárom-Esztergom County. Komárno, Slovakia, is on the northern bank. Komárom was formerly a separate villag ...

, where she was arrested in January 2009, at the age of 82, for breaking into a house. Late in her life, she was diagnosed with kleptomania: she admitted liking "shiny things" and claimed that she mostly gave away her loot to other people instead of selling it, a claim supported by the fact that at the time of her death she had no possessions to her name. She published her memoirs in 2007, with the title ''Repülős Gizi – A tolvajok királynője'' (“Airplane Gizi, Queen of Thieves”). She was arrested twice in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

in 2015, in June and September;Tudja, hol találták meg most Repülős Gizit? A szekrényben!
– Index, September 30, 2015 in the latter instance, she was found in a cupboard, where she claimed she hid from the rain outside. She was arrested in February 2016 in

Sukoró Sukoró is a village in Fejér county, Hungary. History Sukoró was originally referred to as Sokoró in documents in 1270. In preparation for the Battle of Pákozd, Lajos Kossuth held a war council meeting in a Calvinist Calvinism (als ...

, then in August 2017 in

Tatabánya Tatabánya (; german: Totiserkolonie; sk, Banská Stará) is a city with county rights of 64,305 inhabitants in northwestern Hungary, in the Central Transdanubian region. It is the capital of Komárom-Esztergom County. Location The city is lo ...

. Bodnár died on 6 February 2019, aged 92.

Life

Sources

Further reading