This is a tribute to István Deák, a prominent historian of Habsburg history. The tribute covers his early life in Budapest, the son of a middle-class family of Jewish origins who suffered as a Jew in 1944. Deák left Hungary in 1944, spent several years in France and Germany, and then came to the United States in 1956. Much of the commemoration covers his career as a professor of history at Columbia University and his very significant scholarly contributions.