Our Foundation owes a lot to an outstanding representative of the Hungarian American community, Dr. Eugene (Jenő) Megyesy lawyer, living in Denver. He facilitated the attendance of Edwin J. Feulner, founder of The Heritage Foundation, at our 2022 Otto Dinner, and was instrumental in establishing contacts with several North American institutions important to the international relations of our collection.
Eugene Megyesy left Hungary with his parents and sister in 1956. After spending several years in Austria, the family settled in the United States. He has been living in Denver since 1967, where he has built up a vast network of contacts both with representatives of the American political and business community and with members of the Hungarian community. This is one of the reasons why he was able to bring us some interesting documents of Otto von Habsburg’s visits to Denver and his network of contacts there. The photographs show Etienne Perényi, a prominent figure in the Hungarian colony in Denver, and his family. Otto von Habsburg was certainly in contact with Perényi from the early 1940s, who had moved to the USA in the mid-1930s and had already become a well-known and successful bank manager. As Perényi was a committed legitimist, he organised Otto von Habsburg’s lecture at the illustrious Old Denver Club in 1941.
The photos are from Ambrose Balajthy Júlia, whose mother was the sister of Etienne Perényi. Having worked as a dentist in Denver for many decades, Julia – or as she is more commonly nicknamed, Julika – is well known in the community. She is pictured as a little girl with her uncle in the von Richthofen villa, where Otto von Habsburg was a guest. Etienne Perényi bought the mansion in 1946, which had been built in the 1880s by the Prussian-born Walter von Richthofen, and was one of Denver’s most illustrious palaces. As early as December of that year, Perényi hosted Queen Zita and her daughter, Princess Elisabeth, and in the following decade the palace became a frequent meeting place for Hungarian and Central European notables in exile. After World War II, Otto von Habsburg visited Denver several times: together with Perényi, he helped the integration of 1956 Hungarian refugees in Colorado, and in 1968 he contributed a significant amount of money to the creation of a statue park in memory of the heroes of the Revolution.
Otto von Habsburg had a particularly good relationship with the Perényi family, as is demonstrated by the photographs, documents and greeting cards handed over to us, as well as by the correspondence in our collection spanning several decades.
