Identity Statement

Reference Code

HU OSA 427

Title

András Bíró Personal Papers

Date(s)

1956 - 2020

Description Level

Fonds

Extent and medium (processed)

2 Archival boxes, 0.25 linear meters

Context

Name of creator(s)

Bíró, András

Administrative / Biographical history

András Bíró was born on October 20, 1925 in Sofia (Bulgaria), to Hungarian and Serbian parents. His father, who had to leave Hungary after the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, was of Hungarian Jewish descent.

Bíró was confronted with his half-Jewishness at the age of 17, following the introduction of anti-Jewish legislation in Bulgaria. He experienced this as a trauma: for the rest of his life he would not forgive that he was not told of his half-Jewish origin until (close to) adulthood. For a long time after that, he introduced himself as "András Bíró, a half-Jew".

Once the family moved back to Hungary, during the Second World War, he came into contact with the Budapest Swedish Embassy, where – as one of the helpers of Raoul Wallenberg – he used embassy-issued documents to rescue Jews. He regarded himself a Communist, which meant mostly his anti-fascism, anti-Nazism, and his sense of social justice. In 1945, he asked to join the Communist Party. He and his friends set up the Hungarian Democratic Youth League (Magyar Demokratikus Ifjúsági Szövetség, MADISZ), and he started working in the Foreign Affairs Department of that organization.

In the summer of 1947, he traveled to the Congress of the French Communist Youth Federation (UGRF). On this occasion, the Hungarian State Police's State Security Department (Magyar Államrendőrség Államvédelmi Osztálya, ÁVO) asked him whether he would accept a secret mission – which he did. He was tasked to gather information on right-wing emigrants.

After 1956, András Bíró, a devout communist, became a disillusioned leftist. Decades later, at the age of 98, he completed his book titled "I was a communist – From blind faith to autonomy", in which he tackles his communist past.

In 1957, after leaving Hungary, he settled in France. He participated in the work of the emigré Petőfi Circle (Petőfi Kör), as well is in the Imre Nagy Institute of Political Social Science (Nagy Imre Politikai és Társadalomtudományi Intézet). He worked for various United Nations (UN) organizations, traveled much around the world, was a communist activist, a class enemy, a journalist, and a UN diplomat in Kenya. In Mexico he taught peasants industrial fishing. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of the magazines CERES and Mazingira (both were publications of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO).

He returned to Hungary in 1986, where he worked with human rights NGOs. In 1990, he set up the Autonómia Foundation, which helped Hungarian Roma by supporting their small-scale economic ventures, including land purchases. He was the founder of Radio C, and in 1993 he started the Másság (Otherness) Foundation. In 1995, he and Autonómia Foundation were awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize (Right Livelihood Prize).

András Bíró passed away on June 18, 2024, in Budapest.

Archival history

The documents were transferred to Blinken OSA Archivum by András Bíró in 2019.

Content and Structure

Scope and Content (Narrative)

This is a small yet rich collection documenting important aspects of András Bíró's personal and professional life. The content of the only series (thus far) of this fonds is listed in the series description.

Accruals

Expected

Conditions of Access and Use

Languages

English, French, Hungarian

Description Control

Archivist's note

Processed by Erzsébet Szöllősi, September 6, 2024.