Kató Hámán

Kato Haman

a stamp in her honour
Born 2 December 1884
Kompolt
Died 31 August 1936
Budapest
Cause of death see discussion
Nationality Hungarian
Known for communist heroine

Kató Hámán (2 December 1884 – 31 August 1936) was a Hungarian Esperanto and Communist activist. She was a political prisoner under the regime of Miklós Horthy. During the 1950s she was a workers heroine in Hungary. A stamp was issued in International Women's Day in Hungary in 1960 in her honour.

Life

Hámán was born in Kompolt, Hungary in 1784. She worked as a cashier for a railway company before becoming a union representative. She studied Esperanto in 1919 and her enthusiasm for the language led to her serving on committees. She was also active in the Hungarian Communist Party serving on a leading committee in 1922 with Károly Őry and Ignác Gőgös.[1] These three were described as "a troika", with Hámán as the veteran, who continued to operate even after the central committee was disbanded in 1922.[2]

Hámán was placed on trial in 1925. She was then arrested and released several times in the next few years. Hámán died in Budapest after being released from prison in 1936. Some say that that she died of a disease caught in prison and others said that she was murdered in prison.[3]

Legacy

After her death Kató Hámán was a heroine of the state during its communist period and two stamps were issued with her portrait on them[4] and a plaque was placed on her house. The plaque read "Kató Hámán, an eminent figure in the worker's movement who was murdered in a fascist Horthy prison lived in this house from 1919 to 1931". Like a lot of Communist era statues and memorials her marble plaque is now in Memento Park in Budapest. The guide book also supplies a biography which records that she died from disease she contracted in prison.[3]

In the 1950s there was a school and streets that were named in her honour but these have mostly been renamed. In 1956 there was a statue of her at the entrance to the Western Railway Station in Budapest.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Molnár, Miklós (1978). A short history of the Hungarian Communist Party. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. p. 26. ISBN 0891583327.
  2. ↑ Molnár, Miklós (1978). A short history of the Hungarian Communist Party. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. p. 26. ISBN 0891583327.
  3. 1 2 James, Beverly A. (2005). Imagining postcommunism : visual narratives of Hungary's 1956 Revolution (1. ed.). College Station: Texas A & M Univ. Press. p. 34. ISBN 1585444057.
  4. ↑ Famous women on stamps, arnes.si, accessed 16 August 2013
  5. ↑ Hungary: A Comprehensive Guidebook for Visitors and Armchair, Zoltán Halász, 1956


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