OUR FAMILY STORY LIVES ON.

The family archive / Gyula Apatini

A son remembers

The Hungarian voice
of New York

Before I had a story to tell, my father was teaching me the value of sharing one.

To listeners, he was a familiar voice on the radio. To an audience, he was the singer at the microphone. To the Hungarian community, he was someone who could bring people together. To me, he was my father.

His story now appears in the English volume associated with Elindultam szép hazámból—“I Left My Beautiful Homeland.” Receiving this archive from Imre Horváth gives our family another way to remember him and share what he meant to us.

Personal recollections by his son, Jules Apatini.

Listen / Kossuth Rádió archive

Hear the story.

Here Is My Story. What’s Yours? / Family memories

Budapest · 1956

The journey began
before the microphone.

I was eight when the Hungarian Revolution changed our lives. My sister Andrea was beside me in a childhood that suddenly became part of history. Our home on Rákóczi út, across from the Corvin department store, belonged to a world we would have to leave behind.

My father and mother, Maria, had to think beyond the next frightening day. They had children to protect and a future to find. Our escape took us into Austria, then through the Alps to Italy. We could carry only so much, but we brought our language, our family ties and our music.

We spent about two and a half years in Rome. In my memory, it was a place where color and possibility returned after fear. My father’s singing remained part of who we were, even while we waited to learn where our lives would lead.

A new country / An enduring family

Beginning again
in America

We arrived in the United States in 1959. Uncle Paul was part of our beginning in New Orleans; New York became the setting for the next chapters of our lives.

Starting over meant learning a language, finding work and making a home. My father understood those needs because he had lived them. That experience helps explain why his later radio work reached beyond entertainment.

My mother’s contribution belongs in this story too. Behind the public voice was a family rebuilding its life together. These photographs remind me that history is also made in the quieter work of caring for one another.

Hungaria Radio / Community and opportunity

On the air from 1966

A broadcast could
open a door.

Hungaria Radio began broadcasting in 1966. Over more than four decades, my father helped make its programs a meeting place for people who shared a language, even when they lived far apart.

There was news, music, sport, religious programming and community information. Listeners could hear something familiar from Hungary while finding their footing in America.

One part of that work matters especially to me: the free announcements that connected newcomers with employment opportunities. In my recollection, many hundreds of people benefited over the years. A job could give a family a beginning; a helpful introduction could make an unfamiliar city feel less lonely.

My father wanted people to succeed in their adopted country while keeping a living connection to their Hungarian heritage. His example made helping others a practical responsibility, something to do with whatever abilities you had.

The stage / The table / The same energy

Music and movement
belonged together.

My father’s life was never confined to one role. Alongside his work as an architect and broadcaster, he sang and played table tennis. The same person who could hold an audience with a song could bring his enthusiasm to a match.

His connection to the New York Hungaria Table Tennis Team is part of that legacy. In our family story, the World Trade Center event stands out as a moment when sport brought a large audience together around something he loved.

Those interests did not disappear with his generation. They became part of the way I understood a worthwhile life: make something, keep moving, and share the experience.

From father to son / The music continues

When I hear his voice,
I hear our journey.

When I listen to my father sing “Autumn Leaves,” I hear more than a performance. I remember the family journey, my mother, my sister Andrea, and the places that became part of us.

A photograph preserves a face. A recording preserves something different: the timing, the breath, the presence of a person. Together, they give the next generation a way to meet someone they may never have known.

Visit the “Autumn Leaves” dedication →

Here Is My Story. What’s Yours? / Jules Apatini

The next chapter

The example
he left in my hands

My own path took me through music, 24 years at IBM, videography, table tennis and invention. At 78, I still play table tennis every day, and I continue working on ways to bring movement, rhythm and creativity into people’s lives.

SIR and sir motion ai belong to that continuing effort. Practicing table-tennis movements to music carries a connection I have known since childhood: rhythm can help bring a movement to life, and a shared interest can bring people together.

My daughter Lisa Anne carries the family’s creativity into another generation. Each of us has found a different form for it. My father’s example remains part of mine.

That is why I am preserving these memories in Here Is My Story. What’s Yours? I want our family to remember the man behind the voice—and I hope it encourages others to record the stories in their own families while there is still someone to tell them.

Here is my story.
What’s yours?

Jules Apatini
Son of Gyula and Maria Apatini

Continue exploring my story →