Obituary of Robert J. Sandor

Robert Joseph Sandor

Robert Sandor, a longtime Manhasset resident since 1979  known to all as Robbie, died peacefully on September 26, 2018, at his home in Munsey Park. He was born April 11, 1933, in the village of Bakonyszentlászló in western Hungary, living through World War II and its grim aftermath under a brutal and repressive Communist regime, and was named “Man of the Year” in 1956 by Time magazine, along with his fellow Hungarian Freedom Fighters.

As a boy, he attended the Benedictine boarding school of Pannonhalma, Hungary at the thousand-year-old Pannonhalma Benedictine Archabbey, one of only eight Catholic secondary schools that remained open during the Communist post war years. He graduated in 1952.

Initially denied admission to college by the Communist government for alleged ”bourgeoise sympathies” in attending a religious school, he served a year of mandatory public service on the Hungarian national railway. Hiding his anti communist sentiments, he was later admitted to the Hungarian Forestry School, attracted primarily to its non-political subject as well as its location in the city of Sopron, less than three miles from the Austrian border. 

During the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, he was an active member of the Student Revolutionary Committee, which took over Sopron’s municipal government, and deliveredpublic speeches in support of the revolution. On November 4, Soviet troops invaded Hungary. That night,with only his identification, the clothes on his back, and a machine gun, he fled across the border to Austria and avoided certain imprisonment by the totalitarian state.

After the uprising was crushed, he became a refugee in Austria. He was offered a scholarship to attend the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg in the former West Germany,where he spent three years learning German before finally being accepted into the United States and coming to New York in 1959. He was sponsored by, and lived with, an aunt in New Rochelle, New York, while he worked and learned English at night.

He worked for many years in the travel industry for Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) rising to the position of sales manager in Rockefeller Center, and later worked at DISTRAV, an international tour operator.

While living in Manhasset, he made friends with the “Gentlemen Joggers” who would meet in the early morning to train, and was involved with his son’s Boy Scout troop. In his later years, he enjoyed putting his charm and nose for wine to good use at Young's Fine Wines & Spirits on Plandome Road.

He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Mary Ann Sandor;his son, Christopher, and daughter-in-law, Margaret, and grandchildren Nicholas and Tierney, to whom he was a proud and loving grandfather, all of Brooklyn, NY; along with a daughter, Gabrielle, and her family overseas. He is also survived by the close Pierson family in-laws:  Patricia and William Acker, Nancy Pierson and Gary Gold, JamesW. and Cherie Pierson, plus many nieces and nephews, and our special friends the McNeil family, with whom he shared many happy family reunions and a lifetime of wonderful memories.

The family will receive friends on Sunday, September 30, from 2 – 6pm at Fairchild Sons Funeral Chapel, 1570 Northern Blvd, Manhasset, and a funeral mass will be held on Monday, October 1, at 11:30 am at St Mary’s Roman Catholic church in Manhasset. Interment to follow at Nassau Knolls Cemetery in Port Washington.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Catholic Charities, who sponsored Robbie’s entry into the United States, in his name. https://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/