Mária Wittner

Mária Wittner
Member of the National Assembly
In office 16 May 2006 – 5 May 2014
Personal details
Born	(1937-06-09) 9 June 1937 Budapest, Hungary
Political party	Fidesz
Profession	stenographer, politician

The native form of this personal name is Wittner Mária. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Mária Wittner (Gazdagh-Wittner; born 9 June 1937) is a Hungarian revolutionary and politician who participated in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

Early life

Wittner was born in Budapest on 9 June 1937. She did not know her father and her mother sent her to nurses. At the age of two, she was sent to a Carmelite cloister. In 1948, she met with her mother, who was soon sent her to state care. She discontinued her secondary school studies and began to work as a typist and shorthand writer in Szolnok and for the Council of Kiskunhegyes district. She gave birth to a son in 1955 and, half a year later, moved to Budapest. She meanwhile undertook odd jobs.

1956 revolution and aftermath

She participated in the demonstration on October 23, 1956 and joined the revolutionaries during the siege of the Magyar Rádió building. She met Katalin Havrila, and on the following days, they together helped the provision of the wounded. Later, she became a member of the Vajdahunyad Street resistance group and with her companion they occupied the police station of the tenth district to find weapons on October 30, 1956. She was wounded by shrapnel in Üllői út on 4 November during the Soviet invasion.

She was treated in Péterfy Sándor State Hospital. She tried to escape from the occupied country but was arrested.She was questioned and then freed and then tried to flee the country once again and spent a few weeks in Austria. Then, she came back to Hungary and began to work as an unskilled worker. She was arrested on July 16, 1957 and was sentenced to death on 23 July 1958. The sentence was modified to life imprisonment by the second appeal court on February 24, 1959. She was released from prison on March 25, 1970.

Firstly she worked in a dressmaker's room and later as a cleaner. Since 1980, she has been a disability pensioner. After the end of communism, she has been actively involved in the work of different veteran organisations of the 1956 revolution. She was awarded with the Grand Cross Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in 1991.

Political career

Wittner was elected Member of Parliament from the Fidesz National List in the 2006 and 2010 parliamentary elections. She was a member of the Committee on Employment and Labour between May 30, 2006 and May 13, 2010. She was appointed a member of the Committee on Human Rights, Minority, Civic and Religious Affairs on 14 May 2010.