Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1958-02-01 / 2. szám
FRATERNITY 5 This happened at a time when the Communists were about to seize control of Hungary. The State was. assigning jobs. Dr. Zoltán Bay was professor of atomic physics at the Technical University of Budapest, and Chief of Tungstram, one of the largest radio tube and incandescent lamp factories in Europe, the largest physics laboratory in Hungary. He had earned a position of prestige and made a comfortable living. He had seen the first Coalition government forming in 1945 and a few Communists put in power. He saw the police come in 1947, people constantly arrested — especially people in posts of authority. Their jobs were turned over only to Communists. In the summer of 1947, he saw the movement develop for arrest of the Prime Minister. Personally, Dr. Bay had had no trouble with Communists. In addition lO his positions with the University and Tungstram, he was Section Chairman for the Academy of Science of Hungary — in the area of natural sciences. He was European trained at the University of Sciences in Budapest, where he earned the Doctor of Philosophy degree, and also at the Physikalisch Technische Reichsanstalt, which he had attended in Berlin on scholarship. He had recently married, and his wife expected a child. There was almost every reason to stay in Hungary the rest of his years — but there was one reason not to stay — the Communists. He had been invited to join the Communist Party. He had refused. Dr. Bay had been to the United States in 1931 to discuss his invention of a color changing procedure of neon lights. He had come again in early 1947 to talk with General Electric for Tungsram. Both visits had been brief, but in his small experience and observation was the belief that the best atmosphere for the development of physics was in the United States under a democratic way of life. He recalls the leave taking of his homeland in 1948 not sentimentally, but with a precise whimsy one might expect of a scientist. “We escaped illegally. It was not very dangerous then, only a 20 per cent probability of being caught. A half year later, the probability would have been 95 per cent.” Dr. Bay cannot tell details of his flight from Hungary. There are others, still there, to be considered. Some who might be punished. Some who might make use of the same “tricks of escape”. This he can say. He feared the Communists would not permit him to work outside the party indefinitely. He asked permission to go to Vienna to see a book publisher. In Vienna, he went to the United States Consulate and asked for asylum. This he was granted — and later his wife and 14-year-old daughter, Martha, came to him. No more can Dr. Papp detail his escape. Dr. Papp had studied at the University of Budapest and Szeged, was a student of Dr. Bay in theoretical and modern physics. Upon completing the doctorate at Budapest, this brilliant young scientist worked on aspects of the oxidation of organic metal complexes as private assistant of Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi, Nobel Prize winner, at his Biochemical Institute. At the same time he lectured at Baron Lorand
