Dr. Hedda Acs, a Manhasset resident from 1966 to 2009, passed away in Arlington, VA on October 4, 2017 at age 93.
Dr. Acs was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1924, and knew from an early age that she wanted to be a doctor and care for others. As the second World War raged through Hungary in 1944 and 1945, Hedda worked with Gabor Sztehlo, a Lutheran minister, caring for and protecting Jewish children whose parents were victims of the Holocaust. Following the war, she attended medical school where she met and married Dr. George Acs and later began her career as a pediatrician.
After the Soviet Union crushed the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, she fled Hungary with her husband and young son, Andrew Acs, and was welcomed to the United States as a political refugee. Moving to New York in 1957, she did an internship and residency in pediatric medicine at Long Island Jewish Hospital. She spent the next three decades working as a neonatologist at Queens General Hospital, providing medical care to disadvantaged mothers and children, eventually becoming the Director of Pediatrics. After retiring from Queens General, she continued to work with medical students well into her 80s at the Children’s Hospital at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
In 2009, Dr. Acs moved to Arlington, VA, to be closer to her son, Gregory Acs and his family. Her husband George passed away in 2013. She is survived by her son, Gregory, daughter-in-law, Anne, and two grandchildren, Sarah and Andrew. She was a remarkably committed and compassionate woman who led an incredible life. She will be missed by family, friends, and all those whose lives she touched in her professional and personal life.
