From Zugliget to London
From Zugliget to London

Summary/Abstract: Zugliget presents a rather curious geographic formation on the edge of Budapest. With its hillocks and dales it shares a certain similarity with the Austrian Tyrol. Half-way up the hill stood my mother’s little cottage, where I lived from the age of twelve, when we lost our villa due to the bankruptcy of her publishing venture, to 1956, when as a nineteen year old, I left Hungary. Following her death the cottage was pulled down to make way for a larger house to be built on the plot. After the 1956 uprising came to a sorrowful end and Moscow re-established yet another Communist government in Hungary, I crossed the border, still unguarded in mid-November, arriving in Austria. On the 7th of December, with the assistance of the newly set-up refugee organizations, I found myself in Britain. I chose to settle here because I had some relatives in London, a sister and a brother of my grandmother. Aunty Jolán could not give me shelter because, as she told me, her maid had become too elderly to look after too many people in the household. Uncle Gábor showed much more kindness, he let me spend a week with his family, I could sleep on the sofa in their dining-room.

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