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1. After the Second World War – The 1940s

These years were the beginning age of the Cold War.
USA and its allies were on one side and the Hungarians lived on
the Other Side, which never meant that we agreed to it or
accepted it. The Russian military occupation was the result of
the second world war.
I was born in a remote part of Zugló, a suburb of
Budapest, in a nice, English-style house merely two months
before the Germans had invaded Hungary and the siege of
Budapest by the Russians had soon begun. The communities
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fell to pieces. After the Millennium (the turn of the 19 and 20
century), it was almost as if the Hungarian society was
expecting some sort of a doom to come true, which became
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relevant and repeated again every now and then in the 20
century. The communities forgot how to be responsible, how to
stand up for each other. German troops occupied Hungary on
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19 of March 1944. The government did not show any
resistance, nor did the people instinctively, but there was no
celebration either. Hungary lost her sovereignty; which state
was said to last for 40 years. Eventually, it turned out to be 45
years. Many people, including Jews, were forced to leave the
country due to the German occupation so that they would avoid
deportation, but before leaving for abroad, they were hiding in
covert houses. Our house in Zugló was a good place for such
purposes. My father built the house before the war and then he
spent some time in Oxford with a scholarship, from where he,
together with my mother, had to come home quite
adventurously due to the advent of World War II. Even though
the BBC wanted to keep him there as an announcer, they had no
intention of staying in England because my elder sister and my
grandparents were here at home in BudaPest. When the war
broke out, they could only fly on an aeroplane that headed
towards Portugal and Italy. Prominent actor Leslie Howard was
said to have been travelling with the same plane some time

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