Paul Hernadi

Paul Hernadi (born Heimlich), a devoted father and accomplished scholar, passed away peacefully July 5, 2026, in Santa Barbara, California. He was 89.

Paul was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1936 to Lajos Heimlich and Zsuzsanna Furedi, both of whom were concert pianists. During the war, Paul’s father was sent to a prison work camp run by the Hungarian government. During Nazi occupation, Paul’s mother obtained identity papers allowing her, Paul, and Paul’s baby brother Miklos, to avoid deportation and live in a children’s home run by the Swedish embassy. Later, Paul would be remembered as the young child who started a pretend school while in hiding. The family was reunited after the war, when they changed their name to Hernadi.

Paul was a 20-year-old student in Budapest during the short-lived Hungarian Revolution of 1956. When Soviet troops invaded the country to crush the revolution, Paul packed his beloved collection of poetry and fled the country with his college friends and nearly 250,000 other Hungarians. Paul took shelter in Vienna, Austria, and soon enrolled in the University of Vienna to resume his studies in the history of theater.

As a recipient of a US Rockefeller scholarship to study theater across Europe, Paul travelled to London, and in 1963 met Virginia Tucker, known as Jenny, a talented pianist from Texas who was a music student in London. In 1964, Paul and Jenny married in New Haven, Connecticut as Paul began his PhD studies at Yale. In 1965 he and Jenny returned to Vienna, where Paul simultaneously completed a second PhD at the University of Vienna. In 1966, they welcomed their first son, Charlie, who had Down’s Syndrome and required extensive care.

In 1967, Paul, Jenny and Charlie moved to Colorado Springs, where Paul was an Assistant Professor of German at Colorado College. During his career, Paul held faculty positions at prestigious American universities, including the University of Rochester, the University of Iowa, and UCSB, where he retired in 2001. Paul wrote four books, contributed countless scholarly articles to journals of literary criticism and the history of theater, and organized conferences gathering scholars from all over the world. Although macular degeneration left Paul legally blind, he continued to write, play chess, make his voice heard on community development projects, and help care for his adult son Charlie.

The Hernadi family would like to express their appreciation for the generous, courageous people who protected Paul and others during the darkest moments of the 20th century. Their family would not exist today if not for those in Hungary, Austria, and the United States who supported members of a marginalized group. Paul’s children and grandchild—as well as his brothers’ children and grandchildren—are a living legacy to that kindness.

Paul is survived by Jenny in Santa Barbara; their son, Christopher and his family in McLean, Virginia; and, in Budapest, his brother, Andras, four nephews and nieces and their children. He is preceded in death by Charlie, (d. 2024); his brother Miklos (d. 2020); his father Lajos (d.1986); and his mother Zsuzsanna (d.1981).

In lieu of a service, the family suggests that donations be made to Alpha Resource Center in Santa Barbara.