User:Tamas Szabo/Brunsviga
Employees of Brunsviga Maschinenwerke AG a German calculator company in Budapest, Hungary, circa 1940
- Vilmos Plachy, grandfather of Hollywood actor Adrian Brody seated at left.
Adrian Brody Academy Award for Best Actor.
- Károly Szabó, second from the left in the standing row in this photo. He was employed at the Swedish Embassy in Budapest, 1944-1945, and was a supporter of Raoul Wallenberg. More details: Károly Szabó
In 1945, Vilmos Plachy and Károly Szabó together founded the UNIVERSAL
calculator company in Budapest, distributors for Brunsviga in Hungary.
Nationalization of the UNIVERSAL calculator company in 1950 ended the business without compensation.
Vilmos Plachy and his family fled Budapest and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, finding refuge in the United States where he "led a life lived in exile."
Vilmos Plachy's daughter, Sylvia Plachy, is photographer, winner of the Distinguished Photographer Award 2004. His daughter's book Self Portrait with Cows Going Home is a composite of snapshots taken over the past forty years of the country and life Sylvia Plachy left behind. The book becomes as an extended self-portrait, mixing pictures from her family albums with images of people and places of Budapest. Sylvia Plachy calls this collection of work "a farewell to my long attachment to my birthplace."
Adrian Brody, grandson of Vilmos Plachy, was cast as the lead in Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002). The role won him an Academy Award for Best Actor.
After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Károly Szabó worked as an independent repair and service technician for office equipment and business machines in Budapest. (See business card below.)