Foundation of the Arusha National Park

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Arusha National Park, located in eastern Tanzania, is considered to be one of the most diverse wildlife national parks in Africa. Few would think that the founder of the national park was founded by a Hungarian refugee, Endre Nagy.

Dr. Endre Nagy was born in 1913 and, after his legal studies, served in the gendarmerie from an early age, moving up and up the leaderboard. However, he was imprisoned during World War II because he refused to divorce his Jewish wife. He met László Rajk in prison, so after his release, he settled in Hatvan and became the number one organizer of the party’s hunt.

Although he joined the Hungarian Communist Party, he had to flee the country because of the State Protection Authority. According to his recollections, the well-to-do lifestyle which he maintained due to hunting caught the party leadership’s eyes. Endre Nagy fled to Düsseldorf, where he learned German and English. In 1954, he appeared here as one of the organizers of the hunting exhibition and received the Hungarian delegation, because of which had to flee Hungary, as an organizer.

Since he was a distant relative of the famous African researcher Kálmán Nagy Kittenberger, he had heard a lot about Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania) during his joint Balaton vacation and he decided to buy a property in Tanganyika. At the estate of Endre Nagy in Tanganyika, the Hungarian friends, politicians, and even Julius Nyerere, the leader of the country, formed a close and friendly relationship with each other.

This is where Endre Nagy established his park, which is today the Arusha National Park. The hunter’s name lives on in eastern Tanzania in Africa, and many people remember the Hungarian hunter as “Doctor”. However, after a brief stay he had to flee Tanzania and returned to Budapest in 1971 enjoying the support of the Kádár system. Endre Nagy died in 1994.

Kenya’s architecture and György Vámos

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Nairobi is the most populous city in East Africa. Few would think that the capital of Kenya also has a Hungarian connection. Many of the city’s buildings were designed by a Hungarian architect György Vámos.

Among other things, the post office and the mausoleum of Jomo Kenyatta, one of Kenya’s most important historical figures, are works of the Hungarian architect. György Vámos was born in Budapest in 1910 and later he studied architecture in Vienna. His youth was full of difficulties.

At the beginning of the 20th century, he was among the European Jews whose lives were plagued by the notion of rising fascism. Like many at the time, he decided to flee and took a job in Iraq, where he worked for the British government.

He later joined the British Armed Forces. Because he was born in Hungary, he was not considered British, but an “alien”. As World War II progressed, he was interned with hundreds of other “aliens”; in Uganda, where he fell in love with the continent.

After he disarmed at the end of the war in 1946, he saw no point returning to Europe, where he had already loft most of his relatives under the Nazi Era before Europe was liberated. He settled in Nairobi and opened an architectural office with Heini Lustmann.