The secret lay dormant until Andrew Laszlo decided to share his past, the story of how his family perished and only he survived. From his youth in a middle-class family to his first experiences with the Nazis and antisemitism, his determination to survive was tested again and again.
On March 19, 1944, Germany invaded Hungary. He wrote: “…as I warned you…Yes, from here on this account is going to get rough.”
Andrew’s family was relocated to the Ghetto and forced to wear the yellow Star of David. His brother, Sándor, and then Andrew were conscripted into Hungarian Labor forces. His mother, father, grandmother, and aunt were taken away.
As the war dragged on, Andrew was sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Years later, his children learned that Anne Frank was a prisoner in the camp at the same time.
At twenty years old, having nothing left, Andrew escaped Russian-occupied Hungary and made his way to post-war Germany. There, he filed an emigration petition for the United States. He arrived in New York Harbor on January 17, 1947. He carried his secret past locked in his heart…for fifty years.
An amazing book. Other reviewers have described it as the best book ever written by a Holocaust survivor. I completely agree. Written by an accomplished cinematographer who made his mark on this country in films such as First Blood, the writing style makes the subject matter easy to read as the heart and warmth of the author shines through on every page. —Google Review
