Old Times, Evil Times: Memoirs

“I have often tried to recall how it felt to be ten minutes away from certain death, but can only remember that it was beyond one’s range of feelings.” John Endrényi’s memoirs, dealing with the periods before, during, and after the Second World War in Hungary, describe several such moments of extreme danger. During the Nazi period, these moments were multiplied and exacerbated for John’s family because of their Jewish origins. During the Socialist period after the war, everybody was, at tim...