Dezső Kanizsai

Dezső Kanizsai (27 January 1886 – 27 November 1981) was a Hungarian audiologist and educator of deaf children. Kanizsai was born in Cífer in 1886. He taught at the Jewish Institute for the Deaf in Budapest starting in 1907. After the war Kaniszai returned to academic and teaching duties and authored the definitive Hungarian-language textbooks on education for the deaf. The Jewish School for the Deaf on Mexico Square was maintained by the community and managed by Dr. Kanizsai. On the eve of the German occupation it provided shelter and training to forty-five deaf and twelve blind children. It was a safe haven and a meeting point for the deaf Jews of Budapest, regardless of their age.

Memoirist Izrael Deutsch (Harry Dunai), who was admitted to the school in 1939 at the age of five, described Kaniszai of that period: "A tall man with a hefty, well-developed body and a few red streaks running through his pure white hair. He lived at school along with the children. He was Jewish as were most counselors and teachers." "He was easy to spot with his tall large frame, hazel eyes, red-streaked white hair and very fair skin. He always wore the same three-piece suit with a white striped shirt and a necktie... he could speak, read and write English and German and held a doctorate degree." According to Deutsch, Kaniszai was a strict, and at times a ruthless disciplinarian who "regularly [and publicly] spanked children when they defied him". Eventually, at the end of the war, Deutsch was so fed up with "Dr. Kanizsai treating me like his slave" and "using me as his workhorse" that he fled from the school. According to Deutsch, "he [Kanizsai] was a selfish man, always fulfilling his own needs whenever he could."

On 19 March 1944 the German troops occupied Hungary. With them came Adolf Eichmann, charged with the physical extermination of Hungarian Jews. The next day, 20 March, Eichmann's deputy convened a meeting of Jewish educators, including Kanizsai, and announced a shutdown of all Jewish schools. Kanizsai chose to disperse the elder classes, but keep together the junior pupils. He and his wife followed the class during its first forced relocation, from the School for the Deaf to the Orphanage. but this turned out to be the least of his problems. At the end of the spring of 1944, the old Orphanage building on Queen Wilma Street was destroyed by an Allied air raid. Some others, like Deutsch, found refuge with surviving relatives, but the close-knit community of deaf teenagers persisted. Shortly before the Siege of Budapest they were forcibly relocated into the Budapest Ghetto, but were spared from further repressions. However, in 1947 he objected against the emigration of his students to Palestine. He initially agreed with the Joint and the local Zionists, but then refused to give his consent to emigration.

Kanizsai died in Budabest in 1981.