Emerging from Lockdown Bulletin - Harsányi János Memorial

At 11 o’clock this morning I went two doors down to witness the unveiling of a plaque which commemorates János Hársanyi, a Hungarian who escaped to Australia in 1950 and later went on to the United States, where he was living when  he won a Nobel Prize.

The plaque was put up on the building in our street because it was there, in the basement, between 1944 and 1945 that Hársanyi, together with more than 200 other Jewish Hungarians, was sheltered by the Jesuits and thus saved from being murdered  by the Nazis and their local pals, the Arrow Cross.

The event caught my attention with particular force because it was such a surprise to discover  that anyone on this street other than us might ever have set foot on the campus of the Australian National University in Canberra - it turns out Hársanyi actually worked there for a time. The fact that he moved on because he couldn’t persuade anyone to get interested in game theory surprised me far less, as Canberrans are rarely a playful lot.

Hársanyi, judging by his claims about what he understood to be his wife’s marriage vows, recorded in this Wikipedia entry, clearly was.

I’m moved by this story and glad the plaque is there for me to pass each day. The story it tells is a good reminder that human beings are capable of astonishing cruelty, true kindness and, if you add in what Wikipedia tells us about Hársanyi, also  a bit of fun.