Anna Kéthly

Anna Kéthly (16 November 1889 – 7 September 1976) was a Hungarian social democratic politician.

She was one of nine children born into a poor family in Budapest, Hungary. At the age of fifteen she started working in a garment factory but soon found more appealing work in the editorial office of a women's magazine and this gave her the chance to further her education. In 1917, she joined the Hungarian Social Democratic Party and became an active Party member. In 1919, Kéthly was elected onto a committee of the Party. In subsequent years she was a frequent contributor to the Party's newspaper Népszava. In 1922 Kéthly was elected to Parliament as a member of the Social Democratic Party, and represented her Party in parliament without a break until the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944.

In June 1950, Kéthly, together with several other members of the Social Democratic Party, was arrested by the Communists, who had in the meantime gained control of Hungary. In January 1954, after more than three years in prison, she was charged with spying and activities directed against the state and sentenced to life imprisonment. Following international pressure from Western socialist parties she was granted a pardon and released, but kept under permanent 'observation'.

On October 31, 1956, following the revival of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party during the Revolution, she became president of the Party. On November 1, she attended the Socialist International Meeting in Vienna, Austria. The following day, November 2, The Hungarian Government appointed her a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. On November 3, her Party nominated Kéthly for a ministerial position in the new coalition government of Imre Nagy but at dawn the following day, November 4, 1956, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and she was advised to fly to New York and appeal to the U.N. General Assembly on behalf of Hungary. Eventually she settled in London, United Kingdom, where she carried on writing and editing Socialist publications. In 1962 the Hungarian Supreme Court reviewed Kéthly's 1954 pardon and trial in absentia, imposed on her a three-year prison sentence for anti-state activities.

Anna Kéthly died on September 7, 1976, in Blankenberge, Belgium.

In October, 1990, her ashes were returned to Hungary and laid to rest. A full rehabilitation of Anna Kéthly took place on July 7, 1994, when the Hungarian Supreme Court annulled the 1962 verdict against her.