Helen Szablya was 22 when she escaped the Communist regime in her home country. She and her husband, John, snuck out of Hungary under the dark of night with their two toddlers and newborn in December 1956, about a month after a failed revolution.
She detailed her epic journey—from Hungary to Austria, then Canada, Pullman, and beyond—in a two-volume autobiography. Szablya (’76 For. Lang. and Lit., German) was a writer, mother of seven, and longtime Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Hungary for Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. She died at 90 in Seattle on October 21, 2024.
She was born in 1934 to Ilona and Lajos Bartha-Kovacs, and her father headed Molnar & Moser, a prosperous pharmaceutical and cosmetic business. The Soviets nationalized the family business and other property in the aftermath of World War II. The family feared deportation—and worse.
After their escape, John was a professor of electrical engineering at the University of British Columbia and Washington State University. In 1963, the family moved to Pullman, where Szablya began her writing career and returned to college. She enrolled at WSU at 40 in 1974.
She became part of Washington’s “Inquiring Minds” speakers’ bureau, telling her story of living under oppressive regimes—first the Nazis, then the Soviets—and cautioning against both the extreme right and extreme left. She served as the Honorary Consul General from 1991 to 2019.
In 2005, five days before John died, the couple received the Order of Merit from the president of the Republic of Hungary for their lives’ work.