Paul Karaszi and Eszter Hodován were born in the small Hungarian village of Dusnok in the 30’s and grew up during the Second World War. Active in the Hungarian uprising in 1956, the were forced to flee the country and arrived dirt poor in Vienna, Austria, where they married and were able to study mechanical engineering through donations for education.

Later, they moved to Sweden where they spent the rest of their lives, raising four children. Paul passed away in 1994 and Eszter in 2018. They were both passionate about education and supported, with their own small means, schooling for some underprivileged children in Sweden and Hungary. The small inheritance to their eldest son Peter from the proceeds of the sale of Eszter’s apartment in Stockholm after her death forms the basis of the Foundation and is supplemented by corporate and private donations.

Eszter gained political fame in Sweden in the late 90’s through her struggle for destitute widows, the so called “widows’ revolt’ (änkeupproret). See Eszter Karaszi’s Wikipedia article here (in Swedish).