Varga Benedek szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 141-144. (Budapest, 1993)

Búcsúzunk Antall Józseftől

JÓZSEF ANTALL, HISTORIAN, MEDICAL HISTORIAN, PRIME MINISTER (8 APRIL 1932—12 DEZEMBER 1993) In April 8th 1992 all colleagues, former colleagues of the Semmelweis Medical Historical Museum, Library and Archives were gathering for a private meeting. They wanted to greet the former director of the institute, Dr. József Antall at his 60th birthday. The building was droned with ardent enthusiasm, since they cooked and baked, and made presents for the former colleague, director, and not least for the friend who always helped those who were in trouble. The multilingual museum guides, who once had badly suffered but were redressed in the Museum, placed their own-made sweet and salty pastries and cookies on the table. A Polish colleague offered a traditional beetroot soup. The librarians, museologists, archivists together with the dexterous restorer-team produced a giant photo album in which they collected the pictures that presented Antall's 26 years in the institute. Everyone stood in excitement, and wrote with a pen on the black sheets below the photos the dates of bygone events. Sometimes he and sometimes others recalled the data of the photos. We felt that he had come home, got relaxed and took part in the conversations. The doyen of the institute, the 94-year old pharmacist Dr. Bertalan Zboray greeted the Prime Minister, who

—with his traditional humour—answered with respect. This day we felt that he was the same again, that in our company he had forgotten about his nation-wide problems and returned to his old, and confidential "oasis", where he had been able to carry on his political, historical and literary conversations for years, and tell his inexhaustible jokes which made his colleagues laughing. No doubt, it did not occur any of us on this day, that this could be the last time we saw him at a merry party, and after 18 months we would meet at his coffin, in the house of the Parliament, to pay our last respects. We had known that he fought with a serious illness, but the atmosphere resembling those of the old days gave us relief and confidence in the future. One or us made a video record which perfectly presents this unique atmosphere. The Communicationes de História Artis Medicine, which he had edited for decades, published a special issue for his birthday, with a bilingual congratulation of the new editor-in-chief and a promise, that "... his associates, his friends and pupils, since we share his ideas and have had similar lives, we understand him, and the same »Substitute«, the study of medical history, became our profession as well. We regard it as a duty to preserve to posterity all those he has started ... we promise that we shall take care of his life-work, we shall raise its international reputation and safeguard our common work. His family background and education made it possible for him, who had been after all a historian of politics and education, to take the opportunity, within the limits of dictatorship, the only chance in academic life, and establish the national basis institute for medical and pharmaceutical history from the very beginnings. His father, Dr. József Antall senior, a politician of social affairs, who was an aide in the Ministry of Interior Affairs, and governmental commis-