Sándor Kopácsi (March 5, 1922,

Miskolc Miskolc ( , , ; 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 fourth larges ...

– March 2, 2001, Toronto) was a participant in, and chronicler of, the

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hung ...

Early career

He began his professional life as a metalworker, as did his father and grandfather. In 1944, he fought with the resistance movement organized by MOKÁN (in English, the Anti-Nazi Committee of Hungarian Communists). After the war, many of its members (including Kopácsi) were enlisted to help form the nation's new police force. After a posting to Budapest in 1949, he was appointed Director of Internment Affairs in the Interior Ministry. Despite the impressive title, he was not allowed to do much more than manage paperwork relating to the labor camps. When he attempted to exercise his authority on behalf of the prisoners, he was dismissed and sent to a Party school for re-training. In 1952, he became the Police Chief of Budapest. At that time the Police Department was effectively a branch of ÁVH (the

State Protection Authority The State Protection Authority ( hu, Államvédelmi Hatóság, ÁVH) was the secret police of the People's Republic of Hungary from 1945 to 1956. The ÁVH was conceived as an external appendage of the Soviet Union's KGB in Hungary responsible ...

). According to Kopácsi, more policemen were arrested than criminals, so he set about to make the Department more independent. A year later, he was elected to the Hungarian Parliament where he soon became part of the reform movement led by

Imre Nagy Imre Nagy (; 7 June 1896 – 16 June 1958) was a Hungarian communist politician who served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers (''de facto'' Prime Minister) of the Hungarian People's Republic from 1953 to 1955. In 1956 Nagy became leader ...

The Revolution & After

After the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956, Kopácsi spoke out openly, at a police party meeting, against

Mátyás Rákosi Mátyás Rákosi (; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892
– 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian

. Influenced by events during the

Poznań Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint Joh ...

workers' uprising, he and several others announced at a meeting of high-ranking army and police officers that they would not fire on the people. On October 31, 1956, Kopácsi was included in the executive committee of the HSWP, charged with preparing for the first congress. He won the confidence of the insurgent groups during the revolution, and on November 3, he was elected deputy commander of the national guard, at a meeting of special forces at the Kilián Barracks (9th District). His plan, at talks with Imre Nagy, was for the rebels to be disarmed after the fighting had ceased. On November 5, 1956, he was arrested by

Ivan Serov Ivan Alexandrovich Serov (russian: Ива́н Алекса́ндрович Серóв; 13 August 1905 – 1 July 1990) was a Russian Soviet intelligence officer who served as the head of the KGB between March 1954 and December 1958, as well as ...

, the head of the KGB. Placed on trial with Nagy and his associates, Kopácsi was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court on June 15, 1958, but was freed in the 1963 amnesty. From 1963 to 1965, he worked as a turner in the telephone factory, but then he found a job in

Solymár Solymár (german: Schaumar) is an urban village in northwest of Budapest metropolitan area, bordering the 3rd and 2nd districts of the city, as well as Nagykovácsi, Pilisszentiván, Pilisvörösvár, Csobánka, Pilisborosjenő, and Üröm ...

(Pest County) as a technical officer. In 1969, he obtained permission to complete his university studies, but on receiving his law degree, he failed to find a job to match his qualifications. In 1975, he emigrated with his wife to Canada, where he was employed as a waiter, a worker in a refrigerator factory, and then as a manual laborer in Ontario Hydro, the provincial electrical utility.

Book

The original manuscript in Hungarian was over a thousand pages long. With the help of , a Hungarian journalist living in Paris, the manuscript was abridged, edited and translated into French. "''Au Nom de la Classe Ouvrière''" was published by

Éditions Robert Laffont Éditions Robert Laffont is a book publishing company in France founded in 1941 by Robert Laffont. Its publications are distributed in almost all francophone countries, but mainly in France, Canada and in Belgium. It is considered one of the most ...

in 1979. Shortly thereafter, it came to the attention of Canadian journalists Daniel & Judy Stoffman, who arranged for an interview with the author that was published in the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...

'' . This led to an English translation under his direction. It remains an important primary source on the revolution.

Final years

He retired in 1987. In 1989, he was named

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to s ...

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

- Holocaust commemoration authority of the state of Israel - for sheltering Jews in his home during World War II.Obituary. March 4, 2001 in the ''Toronto Star''. Byline: Nicolaas van Rijn
Sándor Kopácsi
– his activity to save Jews' lives during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, at

website After the fall of the Communist government in 1990, he returned to Hungary where his military rank was restored. He went back to Canada in 2000, and died of a heart attack on March 2, 2001.

Memoirs

* ''In the Name of the Working Class: the Inside Story of the Hungarian Revolution'', translated by Daniel & Judy Stoffman with a foreword by

George Jonas George Jonas, CM (June 15, 1935 – January 10, 2016) was a Hungarian-born Canadian writer, poet, and journalist. A self-described classical liberal, he authored 16 books, including the bestseller '' Vengeance'' (1984), the story of an Israeli ...

, Grove Press (1987).

References

External links

Biography of Sándor Kopácsi
by The Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kopacsi, Sandor 1922 births 2001 deaths People from Miskolc People of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Members of the Hungarian Working People's Party Members of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party Hungarian Righteous Among the Nations Hungarian Communist Party politicians Hungarian emigrants to Canada