[picture added by website]Hero of 1956 Hungary Revolt Dies
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP)
— Sandor Kopacsi, one of the leaders of the Hungarian revolt against Soviet rule in 1956, has died, state-run radio reported Saturday. He was
78.
Kopacsi died Friday in Toronto. The cause of death was not revealed.
Born on March 5, 1922, in Miskolc, an industrial town in eastern Hungary,
Kopacsi joined the resistance in 1944
after the Nazis occupied Hungary.
After the war, he became a policeman, rising in the ranks to become the chief of police in Budapest by 1952.
When the uprising against Soviet rule broke out in 1956, (pictures above) he sided with the rebels and turned police headquarters into one of the movement’s strongholds.
“Kopacsi recognized the democratic nature of the movement and came over to the side of the forces of change,” said
Bela Kiraly, a retired general and one of the leaders of the 1956 revolt.
Kopacsi was arrested in November after the Soviet Union dispatched tanks to the streets of Budapest to suppress the revolt. He was sentenced to life in prison but was granted amnesty in 1963 and allowed to work in a factory.
In 1975, he was allowed to emigrate to
Canada, where his daughter lived.
Four years later, his memoir of the revolt, “In the Name of the Working
Class,” was published. It was translated into eight languages.
Kopacsi and his wife, Ibolya, returned to Hungary in 1990, settling in a modest apartment. He was visiting his daughter, Judit, at the time of his death.
He is survived by his wife and his daughter.