Hungarian Refugees Celebrate 50th Anniversary of Arrival at UBC

The contributions and achievements of 220 UBC alumni were celebrated today at the University of British Columbia, along with a unique slice of Canadian history.

The Hon. Murray Coell, Minister of Advanced Education, Mr. Jim Farrell, Asst. Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, and His Excellency Dr. Pal Vastagh, Hungary’s Ambassador to Canada, joined UBC President Stephen J. Toope in a ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of the arrival of faculty and students at UBC from the Sopron School of Forestry in 1957, following the Hungarian Revolution in the fall of 1956.

Seventy Sopron alumni dedicated a kopjafa, or post, carved by Sopron alumnus Les Józsa from an 800-year-old Western Red Cedar that was felled by the December 2007 storm in Stanley Park. The post, bearing symbols of forestry, education, B.C. and Canada, was erected next to the traditional Welcome Gate — also carved by Józsa — outside the Forest Sciences Centre at UBC.

“The Sopron alumni’s contribution to B.C. and Canada, both in the building of the forestry industry and in shaping Canada’s refugee policy, is a testament to their perseverance,” said Prof. Toope. “The UBC community is proud to have played a part in this extraordinary story of achievement and compassion.”

UBC became home to faculty members and 200 students of Hungary’s Sopron School of Forestry in 1957, after the Soviet invasion displaced one of the oldest and best known forestry universities in Europe. The Sopron Division was established in the UBC Faculty of Forestry and maintained for five years to allow the Hungarian students — who arrived in the Maritimes en masse by boat on January 1, 1957 — to complete studies in their native language.

More than 80 per cent of the students remained in Canada upon graduation, becoming a major force in the Canadian forestry industry.

“It is fitting that both the storm-ravaged tree from Stanley Park and the survivors of a revolutionary storm in Hungary found a new life and a home here at UBC,” said Miklós Grátzer, president of the Sopron Forestry alumni, which has met monthly for the past 50 years.

The Sopron graduates have collectively published 1,200 refereed papers, 1,000 conference proceedings, 46 books and 56 patents in 26 academic fields including pulp and paper, forest regeneration, timber engineering, fire protection, and park management.

As part of the celebration, the Canadian Institute of Forestry announced the Sopron alumni as recipients of the Group Lifetime Achievement Award. The UBC Alumni Association also awarded the group the inaugural Alumni Milestone Achievement Award. An earlier ceremony opened the first western Canadian showing of the Hungarian Exodus Exhibit, a travelling exhibit commemorating the 37,000 refugees who came to Canada during 1956-57.

NB: A nine-minute DVD with historic footage and alumni interviews is available to broadcasters upon request.

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