page_title: Béla H. Bánáthy
section_title: Life in displaced persons camp
hierarchical_section_title: Béla H. Bánáthy / Biography / Life in displaced persons camp
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Flüchtlingslager in Bayern Hof Moschendorf
context_page_description: Béla Heinrich Bánáthy was an Hungarian-American linguist, and Professor at San Jose State University and UC Berkeley. He is known as founder of the White Stag Leadership Development Program, established the International Systems Institute in 1982, and was co-founder of the General Evolutionary Research Group in 1984.
  He grew up in largely rural Hungary and served in the Hungarian military during World War II. When Russia invaded Hungary in April 1945, he and his family fled to Allied-occupied Austria and lived in a displaced persons camp for six years. In 1951, they emigrated to Chicago, sponsored by the Presbyterian church. Within the year his former commanding officer suggested to the U.S. government that they hire Bánáthy as a Hungarian instructor at the Army Language School in Monterey, California. While living in Monterey, he founded the White Stag Leadership Development Program.
  His program gained national attention, and the Boy Scouts of America conducted research into incorporating leadership training into its programs. The Boy Scouts of America's Wood Badge and junior leader training programs had until then focused primarily on Scoutcraft skills, not leadership.
context_section_description: Bánáthy reunited with his family in Austria. As the war ended and Austria was occupied in April 1945 by the French, British, Soviet and US military forces, the family was placed in an Allied displaced persons camp. They were housed in a single 6 by 10 feet (1.8 by 3.0 m) room in a wooden barrack; it served as their bedroom, kitchen, living room and firewood storage area. Food was extremely scarce and at times they subsisted on around 600 calories per person per day. They were among 1.4 million displaced persons in Austria at the time during a worldwide food shortage as a result of the war. Food was also severely restricted by punitive U.S. policies including directive JCS 1067. In 1947 German citizens were surviving on 1040 calories a day, but the Allies were also suffering from food shortages.
  Bánáthy later traded for milk to give two-year-old Béla and one-year-old László enough protein. As extremely little food was available in the camps, in early 1947 his wife's twin sister came from Hungary to take their older two sons back to live with the older sister. The Pallendal family, Bánáthy's in-laws, was well-educated and relatively wealthy, so they had access to more food than what was available in the camps. They intended to return the Banathy boys to their parents within a year. Beginning in early 1948, when the Cold War ensued, it became virtually impossible for refugees or displaced persons to cross from the border of one country into another, or even from one Occupation Zone to another. The Pallendal family could not return the two boys from behind the Iron Curtain.
  In 1948, shortly after their third son Tibor was born, the Banathy family was moved to another camp, near a Marshall Plan warehouse. Bánáthy was assigned to unload sacks of wheat from railroad cars. He contacted the World Scouting Movement for assistance and began to organize  scouting in the DP camps. During 1947, Bánáthy was named the Hungarian Scout Commissioner for Austria; he led training for Hungarian Scout leaders along with his former commanding officer Farkas.  He was ordained by the World Council of Churches and became minister for youth among Hungarian refugees. Banathy served as director of religious education of the Protestant Refugee Service of Austria, was editor of a religious youth service and of a Scout publication.
  In 1948 Bánáthy's fourth son Robert was born. Bánáthy soon found work as a technical draftsman in the statistical office of a U.S. Army warehouse. In 1949, with help from a Swiss foundation, Bánáthy assisted in establishing and was selected as the President of the Collegium Hungaricum, a boarding school for refugees, at Zell am See near Saalfelden, Austria.  In the same year, the Communist government in Hungary seized the businesses belonging to the Pallendal family. Because they were members of the social elite, the Communist government considered them to be a political threat.
  In 1951, in what was a common practice during this time, the Hungarian Police arrived at dawn to seize the Pallendal family home and arrest and deport the family from Budapest. Seven-year-old Béla and six-year-old László Banathy, along with their Pallendal grandmother and two aunts, were put aboard a freight train and sent toward Russia. The train stopped occasionally and a few hundred people were forced off at rural towns. The Pallendal family was ejected in eastern Hungary. There an uncle located them and hid them from authorities in a small village.
caption: Refugee family in their quarters in Bavaria after the war ended in 1945.
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