Mathwar/Lakatos Imre
Imre Lakatos
Imre Lakatos (* November 9th 1922 in Hungary, † February 2nd 1974 in London) Imre Lakatos was given the name Imre Lipschitz at birth, born into a Jewish family as his name clearly indicated. His life would be dominated by the chaos that resulted from the Nazi rise to power and World War II, the war breaking out when Imre was in his final years at school.
Life
It was a difficult period for Hungary, with the country unsure whether to side with Hitler or with the allies, but in many ways Hungary had few options. Hitler decided that he could not leave his vital communications at the mercy of an uncommitted Hungarian regime. In March 1944 Hitler offered Hungary the choice of either cooperating with Germany or the German armies would occupy the country. Hungary chose cooperation and appointed a government to collaborate with Hitler. The Germans did as they pleased, suppressing opponents and arresting anyone who spoke out against them. Jews were compelled to wear a yellow star and their property was taken away.
To avoid the Nazi persecution of Jews he changed his name to Imre Molnár, and he survived while others of Jewish descent were deported to the gas chambers of German concentration camps. More than 550,000 of Hungary's 750,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis during the war, including Imre's mother and grandmother who both died in Auschwitz.
After the war ended Imre, who by this time was an active communist, realised that he would have difficulty wearing his old shirts with "I. L." on them when his name was now Imre Molnár. Hungary was in grave financial trouble and getting a new collection of shirts was harder than changing one's name so he changed his name, not back to the Jewish Lipschitz but rather, in keeping with his political views, to the Hungarian working class name of Lakatos. He may have borrowed the name from the Hungarian general Géza Lakatos who headed a peace seeking Hungarian government for a short while before the Germans put their own man in charge. At least Imre Lakatos could now wear his "I. L." shirts again!
In 1947 Imre Lakatos obtained a post in the Hungarian Ministry of Education. However he was not good at taking orders from Russian authorities without questioning them and Lakatos soon found that his views had put him in political trouble. In 1950 he was arrested and served three year in a Stalinist prison.