Review Article: Souls, Hearts and Heritage: Passing from the Danube to the Hudson. Szegedy-Maszák, Marianne. 2013. I Kiss Your Hands Many Times – Hearts, Souls and Wars in Hungary. New York: Spiegel &amp; Grau, Random House. 345 pp; and Griesz, Katherine. 2012. From the Danube to the Hudson. Seattle, WA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing. 482 pp.

Evi Blaikie

doi:10.5195/ahea.2014.143

Abstract

How did the rich and the super-rich Hungarian Jews in Budapest fare during the 1930s, World War II and the Holocaust, and beyond? Two new books deal with their stories: Marianne Szegedy-Maszák's "I Kiss Your Hands Many Times" and Katherine Griesz's "From the Danube to the Hudson". Szegedy-Maszák was able to use her journalist's profession and skills to explore and vividly present her family's story in a work that can likewise satisfy the historians, the romantics and all those who like a “good read.” Griesz’s epic family memoir encompasses the same time period and topic as Szegedy-Maszák's book in its portrayal of a multi-generational Hungarian Jewish family's fate in the crisis -full mid-twentieth century, as seen and interpreted by its female descendant decades later.

Highlights

How did the rich and the super-rich Hungarian Jews in Budapest fare during the 1930s, World War II and the Holocaust, and beyond? Two new books deal with their stories: Marianne Szegedy-Maszák's I Kiss Your Hands Many Times and Katherine Griesz's From the Danube to the Hudson
Close to seventy years after the Holocaust there still continue to appear personal memoirs by survivors as well as by their second-generation children, which can add information that history does not deal with. Most such works have been written by those of the assimilated middle classes, with memoirs by both the poor and the very religious, who perished in far higher numbers
The memoirs under review here are not about the fate of the persecuted masses but about how the rich and the super-rich Hungarian Jews in Budapest fared during the 1930s, World War II and the Holocaust, and beyond

Summary

Introduction

How did the rich and the super-rich Hungarian Jews in Budapest fare during the 1930s, World War II and the Holocaust, and beyond? Two new books deal with their stories: Marianne Szegedy-Maszák's I Kiss Your Hands Many Times and Katherine Griesz's From the Danube to the Hudson. Judy Abrams; Bloomington, IN: AuthorsPress, 2009), is a founding member of the Hungarian Hidden Children of New York, Inc. Close to seventy years after the Holocaust there still continue to appear personal memoirs by survivors as well as by their second-generation children, which can add information that history does not deal with.

Results

Conclusion