History/Political Science paper by Deák, Nóra
ELTE SEAS Library

Escape from Fear to Freedom: Social Sisters as Refugees (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Margit Slachta, or Sister Margaret Slachta, as she was known in the United States, was reburied in the Fiumei Úti National Cemetery in December 2021. The first Hungarian female MP founded the Sisters of Social Service in 1923, which played a significant role in the rescue efforts of about a 1,000 Jews, and in the resistance to Nazi ideology. The SSS started to expand internationally already in the 1920s, and Sister Margaret visited the foundations overseas three times. She was forced to go into exile in 1949, and the paper wishes to examine her activities during her exile in the U.S., as well as how some of the sisters became refugees themselves in 1956, and what happened to them. Sister Margaret died in Buffalo, NY in 1974, and she received a memorial plaque in the Alba Regia Chapel in Berkeley Springs, WV by the Hungarian Freedom Fighters Federation. Although she wasn’t as active as before in Hungary due to her failing health, she was still a respected figure among American Hungarians, and her legacy finds its proper and adjusted place in our collective memory.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Nóra Deák is a PhD candidate in American Studies at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Her research topic is the reception, registration, and resettlement of the 1956 Hungarian refugees in the United States. She graduated as an English-Russian high school teacher in 1990 in Debrecen, then received an LIS MA degree in 1997 in Budapest. She has been working as Head of the Library at the School of English and American Studies, ELTE, in Budapest, since 1995. Her research was supported by a Fulbright Visiting Research Scholarship at the American Hungarian Foundation, and by Rutgers University Libraries during 2014 and 2015 in New Brunswick, NJ. She participated in the Mikes Kelemen Program in 2017/18. She is currently one of the participants of the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH) project called The Post-1956 Refugee Crisis and Hungarian Émigré Communities During the Cold War.