Ervin TOEROEK

Security Police search for Hungarian Chemist Missing from Lithgow

Canberra Times - Tuesday 13 September 1955

A search by security police for a missing Hungarian chemist has reached diplomatic level. International records are heing checked to see whether the chemist, Ervin Toeroek, had any political record which could explain his mysterious disappearance.
 
The 32-year-old migrant, who was employed by a chief chemist in the N.S.W. Mining Company's coal washing plant at Lithgow, disappeared from the Littleton migrant hostel on July 2. Security police took over the investigation at the suggestion of senior police officials. Security police are believed to
be working on two theories.

-That Toeroek- suicided,

-That, for political reasons, he was kidnapped and either smuggled from the country or murdered.
The suicide theory was weakened by two clues found by Lithgow police. The first was that Toeroek's front door key was still in the lock when police went to his room the day after his disappearance. The second is that Toeroek's wallet was placed in his drawer, after police searched it.
Toeroek's parents live in Bechescaba, Hungary. They were communicated with, but said they had heard nothing from their son in the past two months, and could offer no reason for his disappearance. Toeroek, a devout church goer and a man highly respected by employers and fellow workers, had no known political affiliation. A check has been made on all overseas shipping and airlines in case he left the country under his own name, but it has proved
fruitless.
Toeroek sold a house he was building at Kandos for £600, shortly before he disappeared. Lithgow police were told Toeroek went to Sydney on July 2
with two friends, to see a football match. When he returned to the hostel he went upstairs to a neighbour and borrowed some bread and butter.
The neighbours told police that about the time Toeroek would have reached his front door, they heard a car drive into the grounds of the hostel.
The occupants of the car called out to Toeroek. The neighbours said that when they looked out their window soon after the car had gone.
They assumed Toeroek, had returned to his room. When they found his key in the lock next morning, and could not find him, they got in
touch with the police.
Scientist vanished in midnight drama the Argus September 1955
SYDNEY, Monday:

It was midnight on July 2 this year when a car pulled up outside the Lithgow home of Hungarian scientist Ervin Toeroek. Toeroek, answering a call from people in the car, went to the road. He has not been seen since.

He took no clothes, and left his wallet. Police and security agents are investigating a theory that he was smuggled from the country.
Toeroek left his family and girl friend in Communist-ruled Hungary to come to Australia. He was naturalised a few months before his disappearance. Toeroek, chief analytical chemist at the N.S.W. Mining Company's coal-washing
plant, was arranging to sell his new house at the time he vanished. Friends of the reserved 32 year-old scientist said to day he was given to fits of depression.