János Garay (23 February 1889 – 21 April 1945) was a Jewish Hungarianfencer,[1] and one of the best sabre fencers in the world in the 1920s. Gaining international recognition
in Olympic sabre competition, he distinguished himself winning a gold medal in 1928 in Amsterdam, and a silver and bronze medal in 1924 in Paris.[2][3]
Personal
Garay had two children: Jànos, a water polo player and Mària, a swimmer. He was also father-in-law to Valéria Gyenge.[4]
Fencing career
Hungarian Championship
Garay was the Hungarian national sabre champion in 1923.[5]
European and World Championships
In 1925[5] and 1930, Garay captured the Individual European Sabre Championship gold medal. He won the team sabre gold medal at the 1930 European Championships. The European Championships were predecessor to the World Championships, first held in 1937.[6]
Olympics
Recognized internationally as a skilled and knowledgeable fencer, Garay served as an Olympic referee and judge for the fencing competition in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.[7]
He was one of 437,000 Jews deported from Hungary to a concentration camp after Germany occupied the country in 1944.[5]
At Mauthausen concentration camp, where he had been taken, he was a prominent detainee and a Nazi hostage in their negotiations with the Soviets. He was kept in a very small bunker and died in May 1945 as “death case # 14271,” his death officially declared as due to cardiac insufficiency.[7][9][10]
^"Janos Garay". 25 January 2010. Archived from the original on 5 October 2010. Retrieved 26 March 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
