Dr. med.
Pal (Paul) Lukacs
1883 - 1956

Pál Lukács was born into a Jewish family. as Paul Löwinger on May 24, 1883 in Budapest, as the son of Salamon Löwinger and Berta, née Sterk. In 1899, he changed his name to Pál Lukács.

Education and Career

Paul Löwinger attended the Royal State Gymnasium in Budapest and studied medicine at the University of Budapest. He earned his medical doctorate in 1905.

He received clinical training at the Charité in Berlin and at the Children’s Hospital of the White Cross in Budapest. When the Liget Sanatorium opened in 1909, he moved to its Department of Internal Medicine, which he later headed. The Liget Sanatorium was the first of the three sanatoria founded by László Jakab. It offered diagnostic services, dietary therapy, physiotherapy, and inhalation treatments. Later, Lukács worked at the Central Clinic of the National Social Insurance Institute. His clinical interest focused on diabetes mellitus and disorders of overweight and underweight individuals.

In 1914, he published a small book together with Ferenc Papp: Cukorbetegek Diétája (“The Diet of Diabetics”).

During World War I, Pál Lukács served as a reserve regimental physician in the 15th Honvéd Infantry Regiment.

On March 2, 1923, he married Magdalena Glück, who was born 21 July 1902 and also stemmed from a Jewish family. Their respective son János (John) Adalbert was born on  January 24, 1924.  After World War II, János (John) Adalbert emigrated to the United States, where he worked as a historian. Both Pál Lukács and Magdalena Glück converted to the Catholic faith. The couple divorced in 1932. In 1948, Pál Lukács married Magdolna Bálint.

Throughout the 1930s and the early 1940s, Lukács was listed in the Budapest telephone directory as an internist and chief physician. Hungarian newspapers frequently featured announcements of his lectures and advertisements for his publications on diabetes mellitus and obesity. Lukács published several works in the Orvosi Hetilap (Hungarian Medical Weekly), which was founded in 1857 and regularly featured articles in gastroenterology and metabolic pathology.

After 1944

Limited information regarding the period after 1944 exists. The Nevek Project (Hungarian Jewish Victims: Names from the Nevek Project) lists him as a survivor of the Holocaust.

Pál Lukács died of bilateral pneumonia on January 21, 1956 in Budapest.