By the second or third page I had realised that there was nothing to learn, everything was clear. So I went on step by step until I came to equations. There were verbal problems which you had to solve by simple equations. I found it amusing. So it dawned on me that here was something worth learning. [But] you shouldn't take too seriously the enthusiasm of a child on the threshold of adolescence. I was always in mischief, I was a perfect scoundrel. But I was interested in many things. In music, for example. For a long time I had the illusion that I would make a good musician.

But from that moment I could not free myself from this range of subjects. Really, that was how I became a mathematician: I taught myself.

In 1922, I was allowed to return home at last, but the only advantage I had was that I was not pestered by the police. I could not sit for the examination for a master's degree at the university because, as a founding member of the Socialist Students' Association, I had been expelled from the university. It was only in 1928 that a ministerial amnesty made it possible for me to sit for my exams after attending two semesters. In the meantime, of course, I also had to live, so I did everything under the sun. I was a music critic, an actuary for the Hungaro-French Insurance Company, the Phönix. I spent a year in Romania, because I couldn't earn a living at home. I translated articles for the Schering Pharmacological Factory, I gave private lessons, in short, I did everything that came my way. At last in 1930, when I had already had a teacher's diploma for a year, I was sent to one of the higher elementary schools of Budapest, as a supply teacher paid by the hour. This meant that I was paid only for the lessons which I actually gave. That is Sundays, holidays, Bird and Arbour Day, were all at my expense.

It was the fourth of November 1944, on the day when the Margaret Bridge, undermined by the Germans, was blown up. My husband didn't come home at the usual time. My heart misgave me as I knew he was active in the illegal resistance movement. I took his most recent photograph to the police to see if he was listed as missing. The police official went through a great many papers, made several telephone calls, then strongly advised me not to go on looking for him. I came to know only later that my husband had been carried off by the Gestapo to Dachau.

At the beginning of 1950, Academy President István Rusznyák and General-Secretary György Alexits addressed letters to Academician S I Vavilov, president of the Academy of Sciences USSR, reporting the reorganisation of the Hungarian Academy and the desire of its leaders to establish greater liaison between the two academies, In his reply, Vavilov gave every assurance that a long-lasting friendship would be established between the two academies.

The visitors were very much interested in questions of the organisation and the planning of scientific research work in the USSR, particularly with respect to the Five-year Plan, the coordination of the activity of the agencies of the Academy of Sciences USSR, the introduction of scientific research work into practice, and the relationship of science and industry. Academician Vavilov answered all of their questions.

Professor Alexits delivered an address at the V A Steklov Mathematics Institute of the Academy of Sciences USSR, where he was received by Academician I G Petrovsky, academician-secretary Department of Physico-mathematical Sciences, and Academicians I M Vinogradov and M V Keldysh. Soviet scientists introduced Professor Alexits to achievements in Soviet mathematical science and also discussed problems for the training of personnel.

For his investigations in the field of orthogonal series expansions.

I have nothing to do apart from research. It is a pity, it has come a little late ...

Due to Fejér, Riesz and Alfréd Haar, there is still an important tradition of the theory of Fourier-series, approximation theory and functional analysis. This heritage was continued by György Alexits and Pál Turán, in Budapest, and Béla Szõkefalvi-Nagy and Károly Tandori, in Szeged, who established the domestic schools of approximation theory and functional analysis. ...
...
[In the 1960s] in Hungary, thanks to mainly the works of György Alexits and Károly Tandori, many people were dealing with the convergence and summability problems of general orthogonal series. The monograph of Alexits was published at that time, and it contained the famous deep and subtle divergence constructions of Tandori. ...
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Alexits and Nikolskii have initiated a series of international conferences on approximation theory and Fourier series.

For his achievements in the theory of orthogonal series expansions and function approximations, for the development of a Hungarian research school in these areas, and for his internationally successful monograph entitled 'Konvergenzprobleme der Orthogonalreihen'.