Half a century ago, 200 students and 14 faculty from Sopron University were welcomed by the University of BC Faculty of Forestry in Vancouver B.C. Canada.

The Hungarians had fled to Austria after the failed revolution in 1956. Many were rebels against the Soviet oppression.

UBC welcomed them, setting up a Sopron Faculty of Forestry in exile as a division of the relatively new faculty of forestry at UBC.

(A logging entrepreneur housed them in an empty camp up the coast for a summer of rush education in English, to help them get started.)

Well done!

(See the UBC alumni magazine Trek, spring 2007 issue, for a brief article. Try this link for the story on the school
On June 7, 2007 UBC held a symposium and celebration for the 50th anniversary of their arrival at UBC.)


But in some ways it is just another story of heroism, refugees, and generosity in the face of oppression of individuals.
Stories that should be read by the bureaucrats, statists, and xenophobes who broad-brush bash foreigners during the current concern over terrorism - and by the leftist activists and their apologists in Canada and the US who conveniently overlook the tyranny of marxism while they bash free societies like Canada and the US.

As Russia looks for excuses to exert influence in former Soviet colonies, do people recognize the lessons of that era?