George Faludy (1910–2006)

George Faludy (Hungarian: György Faludy) was born to a Jewish family in Budapest.

His parents were Erzsébet Katalin and Joachim Jenő (Chajim) Faludy. His father was a chemist who worked as a teacher in a higher technical school. After graduating from secondary school in 1928, George studied at the Universities of Vienna, Paris, and Graz. He did his military service in 1933-1934.
In 1937, he made an international name for himself when he published a Hungarian translation of the medieval ballads of Francois Villon that became extremely popular but also created controversy. A year later, the Arrow Cross Party, allied with the Nazis, seized power in Hungary and burned Faludy's books. He fled to France, and from there to North Africa and the USA. His sister Livia was among the Jews who were shot and thrown into the Danube. In 1941, Faludy joined the U.S. Army, serving for three years; after World War II ended, he returned to Hungary. In 1947, he published the poems he had written in exile.
When the Communists seized power, Faludy came under suspicion for his ties to the USA. He was arrested in 1949 and sent to forced labor for three years at the notorious prison camp at Recsk. While there, he taught classes on history, philosophy, and literature to his fellow inmates. When the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 was crushed by the Soviets, he defected with his family to London. There he published his now-famous memoir My Happy Days In Hell (1962) and edited Irodalmi Újság (Literary Journal), a Hungarian periodical.

Friends in Toronto, Canada urged Faludy to move there in 1967, and he lived in Toronto for the next 20 years. He gave lectures at Bishop University in Quebec, Toronto University, Columbia University in New York, and others. He was world renowned as a major figure of resistance against both Nazism and Communism. After the collapse of Communism, Faludy returned to Hungary, where he was well received. He married his third wife, Fanny Faludy-Kovacs, and translated poetry from around the world, with a specialty in Persian classical poets.

He was the recipient of numerous prizes, including the most prestigious literary award in Hungary, the Kossuth Prize.