If only it were over!

"I can't wait to have my hair cut" – says Ljuba Prihodchenko excitedly at the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid's Refugee Mission Office in Budapest, District VII. It will be two years in April since the 58-year-old woman fled Dnipro, her son asked her to go west, wanting to keep her mother safe. But her son stayed at home. He has not been drafted into the army because of a skin condition, but a new law now allows him to be mobilized. They talk on the phone every day, rockets are often fired into the city, and after the attacks, Lyuba always calls his son to make sure he is OK.

The 35-year-old man lives on the 9th floor, and if the air-raid sirens go off, he has to rush down to the basement, because it is forbidden to use the elevator when the air-raid sirens howl. 

Lyuba Prihodchenko is in a difficult financial situation, the money she had saved up and brought with her has long since run out. She receives some support from the Hungarian state but also tries to survive with the help of various charities and foundations. She complains that she can't find a job, having worked as a clerk at the local court in her home country, and in Hungary, she can't use the experience she gained there, she doesn't speak the language and she can't do hard physical labour due to her heart condition.  

She is grateful to the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid because she can rely on them in many areas of her life, she can learn Hungarian, she has been able to see a dentist with their help, they have provided her with medicine, and now she can fix her hair with their help. "These opportunities are good, but it would be even better if the war would finally end!" - says Lyuba Prihodchenko longingly.

After a while, the looks do matter

Márton Juhász, the executive director of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid, says that the idea for the first hairstyle service came from his relative, András Kristály, who wanted to give something extra to the refugees living in the country, in addition to the "traditional" volunteer work.

When people first arrived in Hungary from Ukraine, they were not the least bit concerned about how their hair looked, but now the situation has changed a lot, with a lot of them going to work and school, where looks matter.

He says that before the hairdressers' offer, many civil professionals had already supported people fleeing Ukraine. Interpreters, doctors, and nurses have helped from the first days right at border crossings, and then at train stations, but the refugees are also supported by volunteers in the long term, for example by teachers who tutor Ukrainian children who go to school to catch up. "To the glory of God, to the joy of the people, the country is helping," the leader concludes.

András Kristály, the barber of the Cuts Salon, tells me that this is the first time the team from Vác has volunteered, although they had already decided to do so because they wanted to help those in need. "We would have been happy to support anyone, but the refugees are perhaps even more in need of all the help they can get. These families have gone through a lot of hardships in recent years, they had much bigger problems to worry about than how they looked, and many of them would not have been able to afford hairdressing salons anyway," says András Kristály, explaining the circumstances of the voluntary donation.

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Photo: Patrik Karsa /Hungarian Reformed Church Aid

Like a dandelion

Edit Kiss, the interpreter is constantly passing on the wishes of the clients to the young hairdressing team. Every single member of the salon is here, and all eight of them immediately said yes when the idea of a charity haircut was raised. Ákos Debreczeni reveals that although he is originally a female-male hairdresser, he has been cutting only men's hair for some time. "You have to be able to handle hair of both sexes, now I can brush my skills up a bit," he says between cuts. 
Rising from the chair, 84-year-old Zinajda Holina, from Kyiv, looks in the mirror and says, in short: perfect. 

"I've been a mess, so I'm really happy that I got a nice haircut for spring. Now it looks like a gorgeous dandelion," she says enthusiastically.

The retired lady, who has been living in Hungary for almost two years now, set off after the outbreak of the war because they were constantly confronted with the bombing of the city from their window and lived in constant terror. They dared not stay in the Ukrainian capital any longer. In Budapest, she lives in a tiny sub-let in a basement, which is all she can afford on her Ukrainian pension, but she receives a lot of support from the Church Aid. Like Lyuba Prihodchenko, she is learning Hungarian, which she demonstrates by saying "viszontlátásra" (goodbye).

Happiness in the mirror

Meanwhile, 37-year-old Tatiana's hair is done. We move to another room, where she tells us that they fled a small settlement near Luhansk in April 2022. Her third child was eight months old at the time, and they could no longer stay in the village, which was without water, gas, and electricity. They headed west, holed up for a while near the Moldovan border, and then, as the front moved west, they kept moving. They went first to Moldova and then to Romania, from where they arrived in Hungary on what she calls a "refugee train".

They had one goal: to get as far away from the war as possible.

However, her parents are stuck at home in Russian-annexed territory, with no internet service, and sometimes it takes several months before they can speak on the phone. Her husband has managed to get a job as a bus driver for a company, and the five of them live on his salary, scarcely. They have lived in several free shelters and have now managed to rent a flat. Tatyana is very grateful to the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid for all their support and for giving her the opportunity to get a haircut. "I imagined my hair exactly like this, I really like it. I used to cut it myself, so compared to that it's a big change," she smiles. - Sometimes you want to look pretty, to be a little happy. I'm happy now," she adds as she leaves.

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Photo: Patrik Karsa /Hungarian Reformed Church Aid

Helping hundreds of thousands

Márton Juhász, the executive director of the NGO, tells us that since the outbreak of the war, 1.2 million people have fled from Ukraine to Hungary, of whom more than 335,000 refugees have been helped in some way by the staff and volunteers of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid. Almost 190,000 people were provided with information; food and drink were provided to 131,000 people and hygiene supplies to more than 51,000. Almost 5,000 people received medical care and 4,600 people received pastoral care. Accommodation was provided to 19,000 refugees. In the first few days, the main needs were food, water, medicines, and pastoral care.

"For a year, the refugees did not want to hear about integration, hoping that the conflict would be resolved in a few months and they could go home ", says Márton Juhász, sharing the experience of the organization. 

But after a while, they realized they had to settle in for the long haul.

It was, therefore, necessary to organize school placement for the children, to teach Hungarian as a foreign language, and to provide for special educational needs: development, tutoring, and preparation for citizenship exams.
They had to help them find work and housing. The latter is still being provided to 35 people thanks to the Church Aid. In addition, the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid organizes community and cultural events on different national or Christian holidays, runs clubs and groups, and organizes prayer meetings. In health care support, they provide medicines, and medical equipment for them. To this day, the organization's staff are working 24/7 to help refugees at the border crossing in Záhony, where 210-420 people still arrive every day to escape the war.
 

"Well, finally!" – Dr. Zsolt Molnár, botanist and ethnoecologist who initiated the founding of the group greeted us with a big smile. He didn't mean to indicate that anyone was late, but rather that it was the highest time for the first meeting of the group, established mainly by women from the Hortobágy region, East Hungary. Although the group is a closed one, its members are open to each other and to the world, as I myself have experienced. Their openness attracts herderesses from all over the country, for example, I talked to a member from Zala, West Hungary. It is an excellent opportunity to make new connections, which can later deepen into friendships, and to share problems and successes with other women who share the same lifestyle, have the same difficulties, and enjoy similar joys.

I have a strong feeling that the female side of the herding world is not outdated, but positively fresh, modern, vibrant, and proud of her chosen vocation. 

" You have to live it"

"Our parents brought us up in the farming way of life, and we embraced it," says Renáta and Szabina Uzonyi, sisters from Hajdúböszörmény, "We work with two hundred ewes and their almost 150 offspring, but we also help our father in the fields, because he mainly does the crop production from April onwards. We're proud of what he's achieved, and we're happy to be able to continue. Together with our mother, the four of us work as a family team, without outside help. Obviously, some things - like giving hay at the end of the barn, since we only have a round bale feeder outside - are physically demanding, but we love the animals, and it's good to have them around us all the time."

The girls admit that they must be very different from most of their twenty-something peers. Sure, they go out partying, and to the mall, if they have to, but not for a cup of coffee, just to do their errands, and then they put on their wellies and go out to the flock. As they say, they have had to become very attuned to nature, to look after the sheep and do their daily chores, adapting to the weather. Livestock farming is even less predictable than crop farming, they say because it is impossible to predict when things might turn badly: a disease might strike or the ewes might need help with lambing.

"I graduated in agriculture at university, but for this profession, theory is not enough, you have to see it in practice, you have to grasp it, you have to live it. It's useless if you only know lambing in theory, we often have to actively participate in it by pulling out the little one otherwise it might not have a chance to survive the birth. With this in mind, I'd like my future children to follow in my footsteps, because I believe that farming children have both feet on the ground, in every sense, they find their happiness out on the farm, not in the night, with the wrong crowd, " explains Renáta.

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Participants of the meeting of Hungarian Women Herders Group in Hajdúsámson – Photo by László Katona

"There is no greater treasure than putting your own, home-grown healthy food on the family table"

"My husband and I work in a sheep farm in Szentes, and all aspects of our lives are centred around it ," says Dominika Kovács-Igric ,"My husband does the bigger jobs around the fields and animals, and I do the smaller physical jobs and of course the chores around the house. We weren't born into a shepherd family, I was the first one to become a shepherdess and that's how I met my husband, and to us, this means everything. Obviously, it's easier together, we see it as an opportunity and not a burden that our days revolve around animals. We also try to help other farmers on the internet, sharing little tricks and practices with them. It's not easy to farm these days, to combine tradition with the modern world, but we've dedicated our lives to making it work and passing it on to others."

Dominika also had difficulties making her own family accept that she chose this kind of lifestyle twenty years ago. They have not accepted this to this day. For some reason, she says, they treat her as if she was forced into it, even though she had already obtained her university degree in agriculture with a clear sense of purpose.

"No matter what happens in the world, our profession will always be needed," she says, adding that " we are our own bosses. Anyone who wants to can find their goals in agriculture."

Noémi Csapóné Hernádi joins the conversation. She comes from Kondoros, in Békés county, Southern Hungary. She draws attention to the fact that the sector not only welcomes people with agricultural qualifications but also people with degrees and experience in other sectors so that they could learn from them. Noémi is continuing her great-grandparents' former farming lifestyle. In her family farming skipped a couple of generations, since nationalization made it impossible in the last century. She and her husband have the same path and dreams.

"We decided to build a circular farm, consisting of several interdependent pillars: crop production, livestock and horticulture. Livestock farming in our case means sheep farming, which is not a common activity in Békés county. We also present our farm on social media to show young people that there is a future in rural life and agriculture. And that in this future women will also have an important role to play."

Noémi believes that in times like this, that is after the Covid epidemic, and in times of war, at least partial self-sufficiency is very useful. "There is nothing more precious than being able to put your own, home-grown healthy food on your family's table ," she says. She says it should be a strategic sector not only at a national level but also at a family level. "Whatever problems the world may face, I lock my farm's gate, bake my own bread, eat my own vegetables, fruit, and animals, I can manage everything. Often it is us who spoil the image of farming by complaining: there is a drought, we have to work hard, or the purchase prices are low. But it's not merely a struggle, the way we live, it's wonderful, too!"

”You are there at every moment: at birth and death”

Just as wonderful are the beautiful dresses of Lászlóné Zsuzsa Győrfi and her daughter Annamária Győrfi , who honoured the meeting with their attire. They came from Darassa, on the puszta of Hortobágy, where they work with more than five hundred sheep. According to Zsuzsa, there is no such thing as a day off in their profession, but in return, they make their own food, they even make additive-free sheep sausage. Annamária, who graduated from the University of Debrecen, decided to follow in her parents' footsteps. "The love of animals and the great plain, the puszta. These are what got me," she says almost without thinking. The old fashioned way of life and living off our own resources. My father knows so much about animals, it's amazing!"

I just wonder what great amount and what valuable knowledge of nature I see gathering today in Hajdúsámson.

My thoughts are confirmed by Zsófia Hajnal-Osvald, who looks after two hundred buffaloes in Zala county, among other animals. "They are used to coming when you call them," she says. Zsófia has studied biology, stud farm management, and horse training, and she now sees that biology, ecology, and plant science are inseparable. "I have been doing this for twelve years, and the beauty of it is the same as the difficulty. You follow complete processes, you learn to appreciate what comes to your table because you've seen the path it's taken. But you are there at every moment: at birth and at death. Even after many years of breeding, it's hard to let go of somebody that has no place in the herd."

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Photo: László Katona

After many thought-provoking conversations, we smile at each other with the leader of the Hungarian Women Herders Group group, Lászlóné Ibolya Sáfián from Hajdúsámson, who I know is the wife of a seventh-generation shepherd, because we have spoken to her at length before. I would also like to thank Dr. Zsolt Molnár, who supports the group professionally and personally from the background, for his hospitality. "Wasn't it interesting? - he asks. They rarely make their voices heard, they prefer to work with the animals. But they are all different characters, so they can help each other a lot." And us too, I might add. Because it's not only their work but also their view of life that is a real treasure.

Started with a garden bench and a doghouse

Dániel Nagy, a European champion in joinery, welcomes me at his workplace at the Kaesz Gyula Woodworking Vocational High School in Zugló, Budapest. He has been teaching teenagers the tricks of the trade since September.

"Nowadays, the two are no longer separated, and students learn joinery and cabinetmaking together. While a joiner basically deals with windows, doors, and staircases, a cabinetmaker, by name, deals with chairs, tables, and so on," he explains. The walls in the office are decorated with carefully crafted wooden frames. They are the work of young people who have competed in previous world competitions, and the table where we are talking is also the work of a competitor.

The Woodworking Vocational High School is an important venue, every year the best young carpenters of the country gather here, and the winner of the competition can represent Hungary at the WorldSkills and EuroSkills.

Daniel finished eighth in the 2022 WorldSkills and won a Medallion for Excellence, which qualified him to compete at EuroSkills in Gdansk, Poland in 2023. He went there to win and came home with a gold medal, but let's start at the very beginning.

"Growing up in a family house, we were always doing something DIY, a garden bench or a dog house. Even in primary school, I loved working with wood in crafts class, " he recalls. He graduated from the Mihály Vörösmarty Vocational High School in Székesfehérvár and went on to study the vocational part in the 14th district of Budapest, where he completed his technical training.

"The reputation of the whole country depends on it"

The 23-year-old Dániel's preparation for the European Championship was led by Csaba Babanecz, a joiner and wood engineer.
"From eight in the morning until five or six in the afternoon, I was exactly scheduled for what I was going to do. During the preparation, you often get discouraged even over half a millimetre, and it takes two or three years before the fruits of your labour are ready to be reaped when you become European champion," he continues.

In September 2023, in Gdansk, the joiners had to make a wooden frame: a window sash, and a case in three days. "We learned what the task would be exactly only 15 minutes before the competition: what nodes, wood joints, and taps would be needed to make the frame. They change the dimensions up to the last minute, adding different complications to the task," he explains. There are very strict rules for the gaps and joints.

"There must be no space between two wooden elements, not even a sheet of paper could fit into the gap. Even 1/100th of a millimeter matter” – he says.

"I can only perform at 100 percent or above in a competitive situation. On the second day, I finished the sash part of the window in the morning, glued it together and the glue was able to set during the one-hour lunch break" he explains. And that gave him an advantage. "You have to be tactical, steal time. Some people can do it by speeding up and then taking a break, but I tend to keep a calm, monotonous, fast pace." In the building carpentry section, the Danes, the French, and the English are strong opponents from 12-13 nations.

At the results ceremony, Dániel was the first member of the Hungarian team to receive a gold medal. After that, the winning streak was on. "The Hungarian team won three gold medals within five minutes, which was a great experience," he says. Hungary finished second in the European standings, after Switzerland. Dániel says it was a great honour to compete under the Hungarian flag. "They didn't nominate somebody's somebody to represent the country, but really the best in each profession. The reputation of the whole country depends on it," he stresses.

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Photo: MKIK/Flickr

"It's good to see them improving week by week, month by month"

From this academic year, Dániel has been a teacher at the Kaesz Gyula Woodworking Vocational High School. During the day, he teaches future carpenters: they start from the basics, from which tool is which, and how to use them. His students can usually take home what they have made: picture frames, and boxes.

"It's good to see students improving week by week, month by month. They are respectful to me, even though we are only eight or nine years apart. Fortunately, it's not a big age difference, so I understand what they're saying," he laughs. - A lot of people struggle with problems, some find it harder to understand the material. Not because they don't want to, but often they don't have the skills. You have to be able to deal with that too, it all depends on how you explain things," he says.

"It's worth learning a trade besides graduating from high school - that's what I tell everyone. If you like DIY or welding at home, try it for yourself." - he says.

The question is how many will stay in the trade. If you are ambitious, you will prefer to go your own way as a self-employed entrepreneur. "Unfortunately, in big companies, they often don't trust newcomers, even though if they were given more space they would develop a lot. Many companies prefer to look for joiners who have been in the trade for ten years" he says.

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Photo: MKIK/Flickr

Workshop, machinery, wall of fame

With a clear aim to encourage as many children as possible to participate in world competitions, he also works with students after class. He even shows me the workshop where one of his prospective competitors is practicing. Each year, it is in this small hall that it is decided who will represent the country in the current world competition. At the entrance, the hallway is lined with wooden beams and finished furniture: inlaid bedside cabinets, and drawers. He says that in the early stages of the preparations he only worked with oak since the material used for the world competition is also oak or ash.

Inside, there are desks, and machines everywhere. "The fastest way is to work with hand-held machines: circular saws, milling machines, grinders" he says. Daniel says that he has learnt to work with extreme precision and speed as a result of EuroSkills. It made him realize how much you can do with one tool. 

The workshop features a special Wall of Fame with photos of the furniture and joinery winners who have consistently brought home medals from WorldSkills and EuroSkills in recent years. "For a young person, a competition like this will certainly add five or six years to their career," he adds. The European Skills Championships have so far seen five gold medals for furniture and joinery, with the young Hungarian professionals taking first place in the latter category for the third year in a row in 2023.

Our interviews with other Hungarian medallists from the 2023 European Skills Championships are available here .
 

In 2016, when I first participated in the Meeting of Hungarian Entrepreneurs of the Carpathian Basin in Mezőkövesd, I didn't officially have my own business, only Wameleon Design as a brand on Facebook since 2013. Then, a year later, I found the courage to become an officially registered company. At first, I was on my own, but then I was joined by a few colleagues, relatives, and friends. Our advertising graphics studio - which we can slowly define as an advertising agency - is now based in Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfântu Gheorghe), but through our clients, our colleagues, and our history, we cover the whole of Transylvania and Romania. We mainly design packaging, logos, and corporate identity.

We believe in the effectiveness of branding, combined with marketing.

The word "Wameleon" brings up interesting associations. Why is that your name?

We needed a name that represented us. A good place to start was chameleon, which everyone thinks of as being able to change its colours to suit, but if you type it into a search engine, it gives you thousands of results. We changed one letter, which makes this brand name unique. It's clear where the name comes from, but in that form, only our content is found online.

What does branding mean to you?

My goal is that when someone comes to me, they get a piece of advertising artwork that is effective - and that's the key word. We help entrepreneurs who are thinking about image building, or visual branding, to make decisions that are not only beautiful and interesting, but also work. But it's easy to make a mistake here. Many clients came to me saying "my company is going down, make me a logo to do better". This is a false idea: many people think that if they have a similar logo to the big and successful companies, they will be equally successful. It was tiring to explain to each and every customer "Stop, let's come back to Earth for a moment because that's not how it works". That's why I started editing publications and writing books for my target audience, so that I wouldn't have to explain to everyone a hundred times how a business works well, but I could say instead, 'Look, here's a book, read it, then come back and then we can start building your brand together. My first book, "It's Easy for You, 'Cause You've Got a Company" is a satirical, humorous, easy-to-read book, with the subtitle "Brand Awareness in Transylvania". It's about how I became an entrepreneur, so the reader can decide whether this Zsolt Rancz is worth listening to. I write about how I imagined my future when I was at school, then after university, I became an employee, then I started my entrepreneurial journey – and how I was constantly slapped in the face and then I came to my senses. I shared all of these in my book and then wrote about my practical experience of the situations and cases I encountered while working with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the last ten years.

This book has brought us fame in the Transylvanian Hungarian market, with over 2500 copies sold since September 2020.

One of the interesting things about this book is that it is quite outspoken. Weren't you afraid it would scare off your customers?

True, my language is quite outspoken and rather vulgar, so it's dangerous, it even says so on the cover: "Warning, foul language", not recommended under 16. I wrote the book in the way I talk in everyday life. It's not my style to talk in literary language, I speak simply, so I can't write in a way that isn't me. This actually was appealing to many people who would not otherwise read a book. I got a lot of feedback saying "I thought it was a humorous book at first, then I accidentally learned something from it". That's my mission: to teach in an entertaining way. 
I wrote my second book together with comedian Botond György, called "Mitől döglik a légy" ('Know What's What'). It's about the role of humour in advertising, with lots of examples. Then we looked for other, more youthful ways to get our brand across to different target markets. This is how the comic "Nyakleves!" (Slap!), a comic about Hungarian entrepreneurs in Transylvania, was born, which we created together with illustrator Timea Kalabér after nearly one and a half years of work, and it was published in 2021.

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Wameleon Design team

On social media, you have very attractively drawn attention to a special colouring book, which is modelled on all the cities of Transylvania. How does this fit into your portfolio?

We are constantly thinking about how we can reach a wider market with our services and products. This year we published the adult colouring book "T*sylvania", which contains all the cities of Transylvania. This means that each town has its own page where we have arranged the drawings of its representative buildings, sculptures, and landmarks into a composition. We have thus created a product that is not only beautiful, not only fun but also is of cultural value in its own right. The illustrations are also a testament to the wonderful drawing skills of my colleague Timea. This publication is also an opening to the Romanian market because a huge percentage of the consumers are Romanian: the headline is in English, the subtitle and all the internal information is in three languages (Romanian-Hungarian-English/German).

Romanians living here care about Transylvania just as much as Hungarians do, and for tourists visiting the region, this can be a very cool product to bring home as a souvenir that shows our region.

On social media, you have also linked personal stories to the cities. How important do you think it is for a team to have a "face" in the company, to express their individuality?

This was part of the marketing of the colouring book, as we want to set an example for our customers on social media. I can sell my own services in the market if I do a good job marketing my own products, i.e. the shoemaker must have good shoes.

I believe that my business will thrive in the long run if it not only serves my needs, not only profits me, not only builds a good reputation for me, but also if we can build the personal brands of my colleagues. Everyone prefers to work in a workplace where they receive positive feedback and praise for their work.

We are a Hungarian-Romanian company, because I have Romanian colleagues. I, as a Hungarian entrepreneur, believe in a borderless entrepreneurial mindset: our first priority is to be human and to be fair to each other. My latest book, which we are just starting to promote, is about altruism as a marketing tool.

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Wameleon Design staff at a team building event- Photo: Zsolt Rancz

Altruism and marketing, that is, wanting to sell something - these seem to be contradictory concepts. How do you manage to combine them?

The key phrase in my latest book,”Jószívű balf*sz” (Good-hearted s*cker), is the people-centred entrepreneurial mentality. This is what I want to promote. In today's world, it is a common stereotype that a business leader is a villain because the market, the media, or society requires him to do undignified things as an entrepreneur. I want to break down this image.

I think a good leader is someone who can see beyond self-interest. You don't have to exploit your employees and it's possible to build a brand decently.

As part of another parallel project, I also invited people like these to the "Man behind the company" discussion sessions in the conference room of the Sepsi Industrial Park. To prove that there are good and lovable company managers, whom time has proved right.

I've been taken advantage of for my bona fides obviously, but I believe that in time all the goodwill will be returned from the universe or karma or God or whatever you believe in. That's where the essence, the title of the book comes from, that the good-hearted are usually taken advantage of. However, I feel that in the long run, goodwill pays off.
 

How did Wado get started and what exactly do you do?

Wado is a digital agency that I created in 2012. The core of our work is the implementation of marketing campaigns and the development of corporate websites and webshops, but we also do graphic design. Currently we have ten people actively working in our team, all of them are Hungarian. We are already present in five countries: in addition to Slovakia, we offer marketing services to small and medium-sized enterprises in Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany. 

According to your website, your partners are very diverse: you've designed a website for a florist, a winery, a tattoo artist, and the Highland Travel Cradle. Which project has been the most memorable in the company's life so far?

I wouldn't single one out, because for me, each client is equally important. But when, for example, we were able to build a start-up webshop in a specialised field up to four million sales from zero, that was huge.

If we do our job well, our partners can be successful in the market, which is great for us too, especially if they thus create new jobs.

What challenges does someone who starts a business as a Hungarian living abroad have to face?

The Slovak government's unpredictable economic policies, the rise in energy prices, Covid, and the war in the neighbouring country have all made the situation for entrepreneurs in Slovakia uncertain; in the past year, we have not known what to expect in a month or even a week. Another problem is the high emigration rate among young people. The motherland is always attractive to young Hungarians living outside of Hungary, many take jobs in Budapest and Győr. This is understandable because as minority Hungarians, they are not only unable to assert their language and culture but also their self-esteem.

What can keep young people here?

I think most people don't want to leave, but they won't swim against the tide. At Wado, I put a lot of emphasis on giving opportunities to trainees. I love working with them, it's great to see their dedication and how they become professionals. The marketing profession is also attractive to them because it can be done locally, and you can keep in touch with foreign companies online. Obviously, you also have to pay attention to wages, as salaries in Hungary are perhaps the biggest drain. Another important thing for young people is a family atmosphere, so that they’d feel valued not only financially but also as people.

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Photo: Csongor Bartók

Despite your international success, you also stayed in Komárom. Why do you like living here?

On the one hand, my family is here. On the other hand, it is very well located, close to both Bratislava and Budapest. Thirdly, Komárom is a beautiful historical city - György Klapka lived here and Mór Jókai was born here. It is a city with weight.

How does this family-friendly approach apply at Wado?

We are currently working in a family house, which by default creates a more direct atmosphere: once we made some cookies in the house and then ate them together. We're celebrating Advent together, lighting advent candles, and on 6 December, Santa Claus came and left some presents on the table for colleagues.

In 2016, you were one of the founding members of the Association of Hungarian Entrepreneurs in Slovakia, whose mission is to build a community to unite young Hungarian entrepreneurs in Slovakia. How did you start to do so?
I believe that the biggest help is not to have fish put on our table, but to teach us how to fish. In our case, it is the transfer of knowledge and the support to increase our networking capital. 
This is why we organized the Slovakia Entrepreneurs Expo and launched our mentoring program with the support of the Hungarian State Secretariat for National Policy. Those who participate in these programs can meet a lot of other entrepreneurs. They can see that others might be struggling with the same problems, and they can draw strength from others and return home with new ideas and solutions.

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Photo: Csongor Bartók

I myself have benefited a lot from the contacts I've made here over the past six years, and we've gained a lot of new clients. It's often said that an entrepreneur is a lonely man, but that's not so - their work impact the lives of their employees and their families. But the burden of responsibility is not easy to carry alone. That is why I think it is important for entrepreneurs to reach out to each other and to the outside world, to get involved in community life.

For me, photography is a great love. Especially the form where I appear to be setting people up, but I'm actually helping them to unfold and show the beauty that they have within them. I always knew I wanted to do photography. I come from a tiny village called Majdány, on the triple border of Serbia, Hungary, and Romania. Six of us are brothers and sisters, I am the eldest.

I had a tough childhood, at the age of 12 I was already working as a day labourer, like adults.

During the school year I worked half days, and during the summer holidays I worked full days, so I didn't study much, but while I was working I was daydreaming. I wouldn't change anything if I could go back in time, I would choose the same family. All six of us are good at a lot of things. This is also evident in my business, Selfieteria, where we did all the walls and rooms: one of my brothers cut the walls, the other did the plastering, we painted, we foiled.

Necessity teaches people to do everything themselves. This is hard to understand for someone who is used to getting everything ready...

I was brought up in the view that everyone is their own destiny-maker, and this is what I followed when I moved to Szabadka (Subotica). I always had several jobs, a fixed one where I was registered as working full-time, and two or three places where I worked part-time. For example, I worked as an ironmonger for a decorator, and we sometimes decorated eleven wedding venues in one weekend. I also worked as a kitchen assistant, so I really took every opportunity to buy my first professional camera. This decorator friend of mine saw the potential in me from my first photos and invited me to take on creative photography as well as ironing, which meant that when they decorated a room, I would take publicity photos of the venue. I was called to many places as a photographer, so I slowly managed to buy the camera that is my great love, which I still use to this day. 

As I listen to your story, it sounds like a folk tale: the eldest girl from a poor family sets out to try her luck, and after many trials, she succeeds. 

The trials and tribulations have indeed shaped me, as I broke a bone between my fourth and fifth vertebrae during an unfortunate lifting accident at work. This happened last March and accelerated my desire to pursue photography. But I didn't open another studio because there are already so many in Szabadka and I feel more creative and playful than that.
We were talking with my partner on the terrace one evening, and the word " selfie museum" came out of his mouth by chance. I'd never heard that word before and immediately turned the lightbulb on over my head that that's what I wanted.

In an instant I was full of ideas, we looked at each other, and we felt that, Oh my God, that's it!

I checked on the Internet that there is one in Serbia, and there are similar ones abroad. I knew that I wanted a more informal, friendly atmosphere compared to them, which triggers more and different emotions. I set up a café where you can sit down, have a lemonade, a coffee, or a hot chocolate, while you look through the selfies you took, and maybe go back if you want to change something. Each room is different, each booth has a theme, and there are seasonal themes such as Christmas and Easter. 

The business is not yet a year and a half old, but I have rooms that are already on their fourth "dress". But there are also rooms that I don't want to change because they are so popular: the "golden room", the " prison" and the western room. A new thing for us is photography in a box, which is very interesting and unique.

It's like taking photos in separate little worlds between shelves.

Yes, and I never have a concept in my head of what each family's pictures and boxes should look like, but ideas come when I see them. They're not pre-set images because they're developed when they're here, which is why a shoot like this takes at least an hour.

Selfieteria's new feature is photography in a box - Photo: Ildikó Bálint

With the Selfie Museum, are you giving people a scenery to imagine themselves in a world that is their dream?

The Selfieteria is a playground for adults. As you enter, time freezes and you're taken back to your childhood. The guests can let go so much, they step out of the daily hustle and bustle, and the hour and a half or two hours fly by so fast it's unbelievable. And the box is particularly magical because it brings people closer together. People who are already very close, and people who are less so, because you have to squeeze in a bit there.

It creates the closeness that is so missing in today's world.

You can see the difference in the families because you can look at their faces, and see what they looked like when they came in, and what they looked like when they left. A mum recently wrote to say thank you, because she felt like a woman again, radiant and wonderful again... It's worth everything to me!

I envy your guests! But can everyone unwind enough to take relaxed, happy, honest pictures? What happens when someone is stressed?

The other day there was a group of people at the Selfie Museum, celebrating a birthday. I could see they were tense and I have a few ways to get them out of it. After a couple of "classic" group shots, I suggested we move away from that for now. I told them that on the count of three, everyone should scream at the top of their lungs with me. At first, they just looked at me, not understanding. I counted to three and they screamed while I took their picture. One young man commented "But the screaming won't show in the picture". I told him I would show him afterwards that it was there! And indeed you can "hear" it because there is a huge energy and sense of liberation in that picture. From then on, the fun and laughter began.

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The Golden Room - Photo: Ildikó Bálint

Are you a good soul watcher?

Yes, it's enough for me to see how a couple looks at each other, which is not always positive, and I want to do something to make them feel and understand why they are together, why they are here. There are work groups of companies coming in for company teambuilding sessions where you can see which colleagues are the ones that pull together more. Or, for example, class teachers bring their classes in for shots and you can spot the little groups of four or five students that stick together! I have a lot of experience of this because I was a victim of this kind of exclusionary mentality as a child. There were many of us brothers and sisters, I wore secondhand clothes, and while my classmates were studying or relaxing, I was picking onions or corn and daydreaming... I wasn't ashamed, but I was lonely in company because of it. I recognize this in the classes and try to forge them into a group, picking people who are not in the same group for a group photo.

Then it's so nice to see a class walk out that door, instead of several different groups of kids as they come in.

Who will help you achieve your dreams?

My partner supports me as much as possible, he is often at home with the child, because we have a three-year-old son. It was he who drew my attention to the mentoring program set up by the Hungarian State Secretariat for National Policy and the Prosperitati Foundation, which was created specifically to support Hungarian entrepreneurs outside Hungary. My partner was already there in the first season, and it was at his recommendation that I took part in the third season of the mentoring program. I am very grateful for this because I have learned, for example, to recognize what is really important and how to deal with failure. It's exemplary when a big entrepreneur with hundreds of employees stands up and tells you how many times he has been down and how many times he has got up. Okay, I thought, maybe I'm not doing it wrong, but that's what it takes to be able to say in five years' time, yes, I did it. I am also grateful to my mentor, we are still in touch, not a week goes by without him sending me a motivational message, asking me where I am, and what I am doing, and giving me some tasks to do...

As we are talking here, I realized that Hungarians in the motherland have brought us Hungarians living in Serbia together through the Mentor Abroad program. Since then, we have been following each other more closely and cooperating where possible. It is important for local Hungarian entrepreneurs to know each other.
 

Beyond computer games

PlayStation, racing, and gunfighting games. Like many other children, this is how they started learning about computers and IT. But after a while, it wasn't just the games that became interesting. They were eight to ten years old when they first got into programming. "I started modifying the files of the games, so I changed the way the game was played," says 21-year-old Zsolt.

If you went to school in the 1990s or 2000s, you are probably familiar with the Comenius Logo program. The little turtle that you had to give instructions to in IT class - that's probably what everyone remembers. Comenius Logo is a simple programming language. "We were introduced to that, too at elementary school. I saw that it wasn't that complicated, and I was interested in creating something that would work automatically," says 22-year-old Tamás.

Years ago, Zsolt Koncsik from Albertirsa and Tamás Bandúr from Dány met in Kőbánya, at the BMSZC Pataky István Technical School of Communications and Information Technology. They were in the same class, and the same group several times during classes, and they helped each other. Today they are both students of computer engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics of Budapest University of Technology (BME). We sat down for a chat in one of the Buda buildings of the University of Technology. The boys returned home from the European Skills Championships (EuroSkills) in Gdansk in September last year as gold medallists.

They were named the best ICT Specialists and also won the Jos de Goey - Best in Europe award, which is unprecedented in Hungary.

IT systems management is a team effort

But let's start at the beginning! What does an ICT Specialist do? They design and operate IT systems for large enterprises, which means they have to figure out which tools, infrastructure, and technologies best serve their needs. There's a big difference between a small company and a large enterprise with a national reach. 
Tamás and Zsolt won the national finals in April 2022, and last year they prepared for the Gdansk competition from March to the end of August. Five days a week, eight hours a day, but they reassure us: there was so much downtime that everyone had time for a little holiday.

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Zsolt Koncsik at the EuroSkills Competition - Photo: MKIK

During the preparation phase, they also had to mentally adjust to the intense pace of the competition: in addition to mental training, team-building sessions were held, where they also got to know former competitors. "I tend to stress things out beforehand, but as soon as the first task started in Gdansk, I worked the same way as I did in the office during the preparation," says Tamás.

"I only get nervous when I feel we are not prepared enough. But luckily we've practiced everything," Zsolt continues. The European Championships itself lasted three days, with five hours of work a day. IT systems management is basically a team effort, with two people doing different jobs. "You need a very deep knowledge in each of these areas, it's difficult to do that alone. Just like in a company, there is an IT department, a team, we worked as a team at the competition," explains Tamás.

"Are you speaking Hungarian now?"

In the competition, they had to develop an IT system for an imaginary company: email system, file-sharing servers, web servers, and so on.

The need to keep everything confidential and to put a strong emphasis on security made their job more difficult. At first, they were working on a system for a small company, and then they had to design and operate a nationwide network. They worked on Linux and then Windows servers. As a complete outsider, I can understand this, but as they say, they have been in funny situations when the subject of IT came up in a group. (The working language in the competition is English, of course, but the competitors can speak Hungarian with each other.)
"The technical terms we use often have no Hungarian equivalent. In one of the mental preparation workshops, the two of us and the software developer were talking, and the others just sat and listened to what we were talking about," recalls Zsolt. "Then they asked, 'Are you guys speaking Hungarian now?" - Tomi continues laughing.

"When I was watching the painters at the stands at the Competition in Poland, it was easy to tell how they were doing with the task, how many elements were ready. Whereas in our case, the most a spectator or fan can see is how many black windows are open on the screen," Tomi explains. As he tells us, the most someone can see is that an IT competitor is sitting at the computer with his head in his hands - and that's not a good sign.

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Tamás Bandúr at the EuroSkills Competition - Photo: MKIK

Tamás and Zsolt tried to remain calm throughout, but there were some unexpected situations. Time was of the essence. On the first and third day, they almost didn't finish the task, with only a few minutes left. On the second day, however, everything went according to plan and they spent the afternoon just checking.

The podium was the goal

"We went on a hunch and thought the competition days went well. We expected that we could probably finish on the podium, that was the goal," says Tamás.

"But the announcement of the results was incredible. As soon as the second place was announced, we knew we had won," they say.

A total of 14 countries competed in the ICT System Operator category, including Austria, Germany, Finland, and Kazakhstan, with the Austrians coming second after the Hungarians and the Kazakhs taking third place.

Tamás and Zsolt were not expecting the Best in Europe award, as they say, before the competition they were joking about how nice it would be to be the first Hungarian to win it.  
"I almost fainted on stage, wondering what would happen next," recalls Tomi. Then their names were announced. This means that they were the best in Europe with the highest score (799 out of 800) out of around 600 competitors. The Austrian gardening team came second, and web developer János Hidvégi came third (find an interview with him here).

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Photo: MKIK

The European champions prepared for the competition in the offices of the HTTP Foundation (Dissemination of Network Knowledge Foundation), with the support of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MKIK). Their preparation was guided by János Csőke, a EuroSkills gold medallist himself, and assisted by several former competitors. The young people are also grateful to their high school teachers, among them Péter Gödöny and Zoltán Pesti.

"Everything from firefighters to lawyers, but no ICT Specialists"

In their families, they are pioneers, as no one has ever worked in ICT before. "There's everything from firefighters to lawyers, but no IT specialists," laughs Tamás, who was awarded the Commemorative Plaque for the Municipality of Dány, his hometown. "It's a small village, so I know almost everyone, and it's nice to see that other people besides my family were happy about our success."

"In my house, the family watched the results live online, fighting back tears. When I got home, we had a big party. I also got a few invitations to give some presentations in Albertirsa," says Zsolt, who will compete again this year, but this time as an individual competitor, at the WorldSkills World Championships in Lyon, France. Of course, they celebrated their success in Gdansk, too, with the whole Hungarian and international team.

It was a great experience for them to see the Hungarian team constantly helping each other, even when someone was having a bad day.

And why would they recommend computer science to students who are about to choose a career? "You can be a game developer or even a network engineer. There are so many different positions! I think it's good to get to know the field as young as possible. For example, I once taught Lego robotics to nine-year-olds," says Tomi. They both think it's important to finish university, as there are still many new areas of IT they haven't explored, such as cybersecurity and cloud technologies. They add that IT is constantly evolving and it is important to keep up.

Our interviews with other Hungarian medallists from the 2023 EuroSkills Competition are available here.
 

Kindness, professionalism, boundless hospitality. These three words came to my mind while talking to Ildikó Puskás about their family business. The Kiscsikó canteen was launched in 2017, but despite calling itself a canteen, it goes well beyond catering to college students. "Today, we not only cook for students, we also do catering for all kinds of events, even banquets or presidential luncheons. We have basic menus that we have devised ourselves, but we also have made dishes on demand, we are open-minded, we like variety, but we make sure that we keep the great classics on the menu," Ildikó says enthusiastically.

Their story with the Ferenc Rákóczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education did not begin when the restaurant opened. Both of them studied at the institution, Róbert majored in English and his wife in Philology. Ildikó's family had previously had a small business at the institution, which closed down.

The president of the college, Ildikó Orosz, however, did not forget about them, and two weeks after graduation, she approached the young couple to open the new canteen.

During the Covid epidemic, the college also closed, and the canteen's clientele disappeared overnight. "Then, as part of the Hungarian State Department's entrepreneurship training program, we came up with a strategy, together with wonderful mentors, and assessed the local needs, and we knocked on doors in Beregszász/Berehovo with flyers and started a delivery service, which was the only one of its kind in the city. The contact with the State Department has given us knowledge that we could put into practice. The network of contacts helps us to get to know other entrepreneurs, and the mentors not only give us advice, but we have a friendly relationship and look out for each other," Ildikó recalls.

"Then came something even more terrible, the war," the owner's voice becomes serious. - We relocated to Vásárosnamény, Hungary, my husband and children are there now, and I cross the border every day to run the business. Unfortunately, my husband can't help with the physical work, although he was always there for me before, so "I'm limping on one leg' in that respect, but we have a great team of people who work together and we operate in the same way. Luckily, we have a lot of orders," adds the mother, whose words reveal that the Kiscsikó is more than just a financial source for the family.
"If it was just that, I would have left the business a long time ago. We started the restaurant from scratch, and we've poured our hearts and souls into it ever since."

"Everyone in the team feels the business as their own, and their love is in every dish," says Ildikó, who is very proud that among the guests are well-known people such as President Katalin Novák, singer Magdi Rúzsa, the band Halott Pénz and members of the band Edda.

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Photo: Ildikó Puskás

But it's not just the famous guests who make her feel like it's worth getting up every day and keep going. "We get a lot of love from people. Recently, the fifth graders from a local school were here on a field trip, they sat down for a hot chocolate and we started chatting about who we've cooked for, and how we cook the dishes, and the kids were interested in everything. We sponsored the college's Freshmen Dinner to help the young students eat good food and have a good time. The college organizes many events: at a grape harvest we had to cook for 800 people," recalls Ildikó, who, despite the circumstances, is looking forward to what the future will bring.
 

Childhood in Sárhida 

The interview was scheduled for Monday morning in Budapest, but the face-to-face meeting ended up being an online video call. On Monday morning, Márton Offner had to visit the ER in Zalaegerszeg, the other end of the country, instead of writing his university test in the capital. 
"I had a football match yesterday, I made a bad move, my foot cracked and I broke my metatarsal," he begins. "I've been playing football since I was six, I can’t stop, I’ve always been doing some sort of sport." He now plays football for his town’s team. The 21-year-old grew up in the village of Sárhida, near Zalaegerszeg, and it was only a few years ago that the Offner family moved to the Zala county seat.

"Growing up in a village, all my childhood, when I had free time, I would go out with my dad to do some fixing or I would do some DIY in the cellar by myself. Now as I'm at university, I help a friend renovate his flat, but now, unfortunately, with a broken leg, I won't be able to do not only sports but also this for a while," he laments.

Travelled to Gdansk as a silver medallist

He learned the trade of plumbing and heating after primary school. He says he wasn't sure he wanted to go to university, so he and his parents decided to go to a vocational school. This is how he chose the István Széchenyi Vocational High School in Zalaegerszeg, the school that gave him the foundations.

"I owe a lot to my teacher Imre Péter," he says. He was the one who drew his attention to the national selection competition. This year's EuroSkills was not Márton's first international competition: he started preparing for the 2022 World Skills Championships, at the end of May 2021, which meant he had to move to the capital. Last year, he won silver in Lahr, Germany, and from there, it was almost a steady path to EuroSkills 2023. 

"I spent a year and a half preparing for the World Championships and two and a half for the European Championships," he says.

For the European Championships in Poland, he spent five days a week practicing at the Szily Kálmán Vocational School's workshop, where Csilla Szigetvári, a building services engineer, prepared him for the competition according to a strict schedule. In the competition, the plumbing, gas- and heating installations are divided into separate sections and everything is scored separately.

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Photo: MIK/Flickr

Clamping of pipes, piping, pressure testing

They worked eighteen hours, spread over three days. "We started with the gas module on the first day. Clamping, piping, pressure testing." He lists the steps of the gas pipes installation." He says that technically there is not much difference between gas, water, and heating installation. The competition itself required a high level of precision, accuracy, and speed. There were spectacular installation tasks to be done: building the piping outside the wall, with nice shapes and curves, so aesthetics were important. "In comparison, the so-called five-layer pipe is common in today's world, which is 99 percent behind the wall, so it doesn't matter so much how it looks." 

"My big strength was that I could very much be present mentally. I was able to get up from the difficulties," he says.

But there was something else that surely gave him extra energy during the race. "It was huge to have my parents come out to Gdansk to cheer me on. They said it was an unforgettable memory for them too," he says. Besides, while last year he was the only Hungarian competitor at the World Championships, this year the whole Hungarian team was together. "It created a good atmosphere because everyone was able to talk to everyone."

Sixteen people were competing in Marci's profession, but he says it was clear from the start who the three or four strongest people were, and who might have a chance of getting on the podium.

To the top of the podium after difficulties

On the second day of the competition, he was faced with an unexpected difficulty that made him feel unsure. "I was going the fastest, so I was the first to encounter a problem: the radiator could not be placed where it was originally designed to be. It wasn't the right size. So I had to call in the experts (they do the scoring - ed.) who stopped my time and then they started discussing how to solve the problem.

Here I had 40 minutes of time off, so my rhythm was broken.

Fortunately, by the third day I was able to recover," he says.

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Márton Offner at the top of the podium at the 2023 EuroSkills Championships - Photo: MKIK/Flickr

He cites the announcement of the results as his favourite moment in Gdansk. "I got the bad news beforehand that they had downgraded my pump and radiator to 0 points. Not rightly. It made me a bit discouraged, I was unsure if I was going to get a podium at all," he recalls. All three medal-winning nations - France, Hungary, England in that order - were called to the stage, but it was not yet known who would finish in what order. "Here I was sure I was on the podium, I just didn't know what place. I was a little bit convinced that I would be a silver medallist again. But to win the gold medal was a great experience," he says. 

"I would rather design"

Marci thinks that the professional knowledge he has acquired is useful in any case, but he decided not to stop there. He is currently studying energy engineering at the Budapest University of Technology. "I have no problem with construction, but I'm more interested in design, I'd rather design than do manual work out in the field," he explains. "This competition and my first place are not for the short run but for the long run.  In the long run, such an achievement can look very good on a CV. In the short run, it means professional recognition and a certain amount of fame. For example, I have been told that a large building company already knows my name. That's not bad," he smiles.

"I met a lot of people during the preparation, and you also go through a personal development. However, it also meant a lot of sacrifices, mostly in terms of my relationships. In the last two years, I have spent very little time at home, in Zalaegerszeg, with my family and friends. But in hindsight I think it was worth it," he adds.

For interviews with other Hungarian medallists from the 2023 EuroSkills Championships, click here and here or here
 

Myth 1 – semi-true: 
Semmelweis' discovery was met with total rejection by his contemporary colleagues

Semmelweis became world-famous gradually from the end of the 19th century, when the news of his discovery spread: he "discovered" chlorine handwashing as a means of avoiding puerperal fever, but he could only prove its effectiveness statistically, he did not yet have the necessary pathological knowledge. (The existence of microbes was proved by Louis Pasteur from 1857 on, and his discovery only gradually became known.) In 1847, after much investigation, he came to the conclusion that puerperal fever was not an epidemic, as had been previously thought, but that its cause was to be found in the clinic. A death explained the connection: a medical colleague of his died of septicaemia from a wound he had received during an autopsy, with symptoms similar to those of the women who died after childbirth. From then on, to prevent the transmission of the "corpse poison", he and his students washed their hands thoroughly in chlorinated water before each examination.

The number of deaths dropped dramatically in just a few months.

So statistics – and Semmelweis was a passionate believer in numbers, in practical effectiveness – proved the effectiveness of disinfectant handwashing. But he could not scientifically justify the cause-and-effect relationship. As a result, his colleagues were largely sceptical about the compulsory hand-washing, which was a very tedious, time-consuming procedure that also caused skin irritation. His difficult, impetuous, impatient nature didn't help either. However, documents in the archives testify that Semmelweis's teachers and friends fought tenaciously for him and his principles for many years, and stood by him even after he himself had turned his back on Vienna and went to work in Budapest. One of his English medical colleagues, who had been so impressed by his suggestion to combat puerperal fever when they met in Vienna that on his return to England, he gave several lectures on the subject, wrote to him in 1849: "The fame and truth of your discovery is now spreading in public opinion, and is understood and acknowledged in all medical societies to be a useful thing."

In 1850, Ignác Semmelweis moved back to Buda and became head of the obstetrics department of the Rókus Hospital in Pest, where he also required disinfectant hand washing. He was given an even wider scope when he was appointed professor of obstetrics at the Medical University of Pest in 1855, teaching all his obstetric and midwife students to wash their hands. His professional recognition is also demonstrated by the fact that he was invited to teach at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, but refused and stayed in Pest.

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A painting of a hospital in the time of Semmelweis - Photo: Wikipedia

In 1860, in Vienna, he published his book Die Aetiologie... in German on the pathology and prevention of puerperal fever. Semmelweis himself sent a copy of this to the Hungarian Council of Governors intending to secure a decree for his handwashing reform – they asked the medical faculty of the University of Pest for their opinion, who supported it. Thus it became an official order in 1862 that Semmelweis's proposal should be incorporated into hospital protocol – obviously, this did not happen overnight. Semmelweis wrote open, persuasive letters to well-known professors in major European hospitals urging them to switch to disinfectant handwashing - but, of course, this had no immediate effect, disappointing him in his zeal for a good cause. After his death, his students continued to follow his practice, and disinfectant handwashing was adopted in a growing number of foreign medical institutions.

For example, József Fleischer, who was appointed head of the obstetrics department of the Rókus Hospital in 1869, surpassed even Semmelweis in rigour, so that the proportion of puerperal fever cases in his department remained below one percent.

A young doctor, who regularly sent travel reports from Europe to the Medical Weekly, wrote a few years after Semmelweis's death that "Professor Semmelweis has already made many conquests. In some places, he is followed in silence, in others he is called a leader. It gives me the greatest pleasure to write that a university as famous as that of Berlin is now proceeding on principles which at first were received with doubt."

So it is false to claim that in his lifetime no one understood the significance of his discovery – but clearly, accepting his protocol was a slow process, and in his lifetime he had not yet reached a level that would have given him, a doctor with a responsibility for all patients, the sense of satisfaction.

Myth 2 – not true: 
Semmelweis was conspired against, declared insane, locked up, and practically murdered by his envious colleagues and his ill-intentioned wife.

He was 47 years old when, because of his poor mental state and his outbursts of temper, his young wife and his doctor friends turned to the renowned doctor Ferdinand von Hebra (one of Semmelweis' patrons) in Vienna for medical advice, who recommended asylum treatment. Hoping for an improvement in his condition, he was admitted to an asylum in southern Austria (not Döbling), against his will, of course. Ignác Semmelweis died in the institution on 13 August 1865. This has become the source of many rumours and conspiracy theories.

His doctor friends were considered traitors, and his wife was accused of wanting to get rid of her husband, whose human greatness she did not recognise. She was reproached for not having brought her husband's ashes back to Budapest until 1891 and for having changed his name to Szemerkényi (Ignác Semmelweis' brothers had already changed their surname to Szemerkényi long before, and their widowed sister-in-law had followed suit). Her financial and social status became much worse after her husband's death: she and her young children basically had to rely on the mercy of her relatives.)

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Photo of Ignác Semmelweis (1864) - Photo: MNM Semmelweis Medical History Museum and Library / Wikipedia

New myths were born when he was exhumed in 1963 and his remains were examined by three Hungarian medical experts.

They concluded that Semmelweis had died of sepsis from slow-onset osteomyelitis in his right hand – the same disease he had fought all through his life to prevent.

His disturbed mental state was only thought to be a delirium accompanying sepsis.

The other theory was put forward slightly later by psychiatrist István Benedek: according to him, the insanity, which had become unbearable for his environment, could have been paralysis progressiva, which was the third period of syphilis (haemophilia) leading to death, so Semmelweis would have died soon even without the infection of his wound. (Syphilis was almost a 'national disease' at the time, and could be contracted not only through sexual transmission but also during childbirth or autopsy.) The denouement could have been hastened by sepsis from the hand wound.

The speculation surrounding his death became intense when, in the mid-1970s, György Silló-Seidl, a doctor living in the (then) GDR, managed to obtain Semmelweis's original autopsy report from Austria, which confirmed sepsis but nothing else. However, he published his book both in Hungarian and in German, in which he accused Semmelweis's Hungarian friends and colleagues of "conspiring with fellow Austrian doctors to remove him, imprisoning him unjustifiably in a mental hospital, where he was brutally murdered".

This theory, which is the most bizarre and unsupported by any evidence, has become the most popular, returning from time to time in tabloid and pulp fiction. Notable "experts" (including a popular medical geneticist, a security expert, and a literary historian) have also voted for this fictional version. "'Was he killed? Yes. By whom? How? He was isolated from the outside world, he was beaten, he suffered injuries, his wounds were infected, they were left untreated, he obtained sepsis," Silló-Seidl wrote in a 1977 article in the magazine Élet és irodalom (Life and Literature).

In contrast to him, the more sober and scientific explanation was presented by the medical historian József Antall, who stated in the same newspaper that "Semmelweis was not killed".

There is no evidence that he was treated cruelly, that his injuries may have been self-inflicted in the cell where he was locked up as a danger to himself and the public, and from which he was probably trying to escape – unfortunately, this is true of all people with severe mental illness at the time, for whom more humane methods of treatment were not yet available.

For us laymen, all we can see is that in the photo taken the year before his death, he looks almost like an old man, even though he was only 46, the father of three small children. Looking back after a century and a half, he had a tragic but successful life. "My teaching is to banish the terror of the maternity ward, to keep the wife for the husband and the mother for the child," he wrote as his creed. In fact, we owe him much more than that: thanks to his discovery, all medical interventions became safer.

Literature used:
Semmelweis Ignác emlékezetére, 150 évvel halála után. Főszerk.: Dr. Monos Emil. Semmelweis Kiadó, 2015.
(In memory of Ignác Semmelweis, 150 years after his death. Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Emil Monos. Semmelweis Publisher, 2015.)
http://real.mtak.hu/30826/1/Benedek_I._Semmelweis_MTA_2_u.pdf 
https://mek.oszk.hu/05400/05427/pdf/Semmelweis_keziratai.pdf 
https://leveltarimozaikok.bparchiv.hu/2023/12/08/leveltari-mozaikok-91/?fbclid=IwAR1yaV5y-IWt6J5cAGhwFz6NWLwOkenbIhiO9p0Lmtv8JW8_h8oIpZDFPwc#more-3987