Some revelations have the power to change a life. In Marianne Szegedy-Maszák's touching memoir of her parents, the secrets she unlocks in translating her deceased parents' love letters from Hungarian to English cast her family in a new light. While her parents' immigration from Hungary after World War II and her Jewish mother's refugee status during the war were no secret, the fraught and intricate love story told in the letters is one that she never heard when she was growing up.
Szegedy-Maszák discovers that her withdrawn and depressed father, Aládar, once possessed the initiative to court her mother, Hanna Kornfeld, against all odds--drawing upon the same courage with which he used his diplomatic position to oppose the Nazi regime, which led to his imprisonment in Dachau. Her mother, who always seemed conventional as a parent, was of the mettle to inspire and preserve a love that lasted through war and Nazi concentration camps. The impact of these revelations inspired Szegedy-Maszák to explore her family's past further, taking her into the pitiless fray of World War II, where events of unthinkable horror were unfolding. The juxtaposition of the historical and personal here conveys the sheer magnitude of the forces arrayed against the protagonists and their loved ones.
What is most remarkable about the love story of Aládar and Hanna is not so much the obstacles at its beginning, but the way their love triumphed over years of trauma and separation. The book is animated by the author's excitement in discovering the power of that love and its endurance through so many hardships and even until death. --Ilana Teitelbaum, book reviewer at the Huffington Post