Hungarian refugee crisis offers lessons for global solidarity 70 years on
Hungarian refugee crisis offers lessons for global solidarity 70 years on
Hungarian refugees arrive at the Eisenstadt refugee camp in Austria following the violent suppression of the Hungarian uprising in November 1956.
Seventy years ago today, a student demonstration in Budapest grew into a nationwide uprising. When Soviet tanks moved into the capital on 4 November 1956 and crushed the uprising, thousands of Hungarians began to flee, setting in motion a refugee crisis that would leave a lasting mark on international refugee protection.
Between 4 and 6 November, some 10,000 Hungarians crossed into Austria. The numbers rose rapidly, reaching 36,000 by 16 November and 113,000 by the end of the month. Eventually, around 180,000 would reach Austria and another 20,000 Yugoslavia.
Soon after, the UN General Assembly entrusted UNHCR with coordinating the refugee response, including providing emergency relief, mobilizing financial assistance and securing resettlement opportunities in other countries, in coordination with the UN Secretary-General.
UNHCR launches an international appeal on behalf of Hungarian refugees, 5 November 1956.
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For the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), an organization established less than six years earlier with a temporary mandate due to expire in 1958, the crisis represented an unprecedented challenge.
On 5 November, UNHCR moved quickly to rally international support, issuing an urgent appeal to governments for assistance to Hungarian refugees.
Within days, an extraordinary relief operation began to take shape. In Vienna, a coordinating committee brought together Austrian authorities, UNHCR, the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM), the League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS), and local and international voluntary organizations.
It was an early demonstration of a principle that remains central to refugee responses today: when displacement happens on a large scale, no single actor can respond alone, and effective protection depends on governments, UN agencies and other humanitarian organizations coordinating their efforts.
The response covered immediate assistance such as food, clothing and medical care; registration and documentation; legal and protection needs; and integration support for those who would remain in Austria.
As the immediate emergency came under control, attention turned to finding longer-term solutions. Within days of the first arrivals, UNHCR and the UN Secretary-General were calling on other governments to accept Hungarian refugees.
“As countries began offering places, departures from Austria and Yugoslavia accelerated, with refugees travelling onwards by train, bus, ship and plane,” explains Nicole Epting, UNHCR Representative for Central and South-East Europe.
“By 31 December 1956, 92,950 people had already been transported out of Austria. In 2025, just 81,800 refugees worldwide accessed resettlement and other safe pathways to third countries. Today’s displacement crises call for the same solidarity, with more countries offering refugees the chance to start again.”
Hungarian refugees board a train from Austria to Switzerland in 1956, in a black-and-white photo colourized in 2021 by Brazilian artist Marina Amaral.
Among those resettled was Thomas Wassermann, then aged 14, who left Budapest with a classmate and no accompanying adult. After reaching Austria, he celebrated his birthday aboard the ship that would take him to his new home: Australia.
Seventy years later, Thomas, now 84 and living in Sydney, remembers the uncertainty of that journey: “I left Hungary as a 14-year-old boy and turned 15 somewhere at sea. I was leaving one life behind without knowing what the next one would look like.”
What followed was a life he could hardly have imagined. After excelling at soccer in Australia, Thomas was offered the chance to play for Chelsea Football Club in England in the early 1960s. His journey later took him to the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden, where he worked as a model and met his future wife.
Thomas Wassermann poses for a photoshoot during his modelling career in Germany, 1966.
“The international response to the Hungarian refugee crisis was an extraordinary act of solidarity,” says Philippe Leclerc, UNHCR Regional Director for Europe. “Some 180,000 refugees were eventually resettled around the world and given the chance to rebuild their lives. Seventy years later, as millions are forced to flee in search of safety, that same commitment to stand by refugees and to offer new beginnings remains just as essential."
The Hungarian uprising was also the first time a displaced population was recognized as refugees on a prima facie basis, without requiring a full individual determination in every case. It was a pragmatic response to an urgent human reality, and an important development in international refugee protection and practice.
For the people crossing into Austria, this legal breakthrough had immediate consequences. Barbara Piazza-Georgi, who was four when her family fled Hungary, still keeps two attestations issued to her parents by the UNHCR office in Rome in 1957, certifying that they were considered refugees under UNHCR’s mandate.
“I was only four when we fled Hungary, but I still have these UNHCR documents issued to my parents in Rome. Looking at them today, it is remarkable to think that the little girl who arrived as a refugee would later spend much of her life working for the United Nations,” said Barbara, who went on to work with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) across Africa and the Middle East.
Barbara Piazza-Georgi (left) with her family in Rome on a Christmas greeting card sent to Budapest in 1957, after the family fled Hungary.
But recognition as refugees was only the beginning. Once across the border, people needed help finding a way forward. Éva Arros still remembers the international support her family received as they sought safety beyond Hungary’s borders. After reaching Austria, they travelled on to Italy, where people in Bolzano waited late into the night to welcome them with bread and salami.
Childhood portrait of Éva Arros.
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In Milan, Éva and her sister were given new shoes. The family later boarded the Castel Bianco passenger ship bound for Canada. Looking back on the care they received along the way and the warm welcome that followed in Canada, Éva recalled: “We were very well taken care of by the international community, and I am still immensely grateful.”
Governments across the world also contributed to the response. Countries as far away as Ethiopia, Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil offered financial support, temporary shelter or visas. What had begun as a refugee crisis on the borders of Austria and Yugoslavia had become a truly international response.
Géza Tatrallyay was seven when his family finally escaped Hungary on their third attempt, having previously been caught and turned back. After crossing a guarded, mine-strewn border into Austria, the family was accommodated in a refugee camp set up with UNHCR assistance.
They eventually arrived in Canada aboard an aircraft sent to carry Hungarian refugees from Vienna to Toronto. “We left Hungary looking for safety, without knowing where our journey would end. Canada gave my family the chance to start again, and from that new beginning came opportunities I could never have imagined,” Géza said.
Géza Tatrallyay (right) and his family outside their home in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, with the family’s first car, 1957.
Géza went on to study at Harvard and Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and, in 1976, represented Canada in fencing at the Montreal Olympic Games.
Seventy years on, the world has grown accustomed to repeated humanitarian crises, with attention often fading before the displacement has even stopped. The lessons of 1956 show what can be achieved when protection is granted quickly, responsibilities are shared internationally, and solutions are pursued at the outset of a crisis.
