The Bridge at Andau: The Compelling True Story of a Brave, Embattled People

I had just returned from Budapest, a beautiful city still digging out from 45 years of Communist mis-rule. The tour guide, a lovely lady in her mid-50's with a lilting accent, spoke of the Russians with disdain. She positively spat out the word "Russian." As one who had majored in political science during the 1970's and who was familiar with the 1956 revolution I had a visceral understanding of what fueled her venom. When I returned to the United States I bought this book, which was written in 1957 based on hundreds of interviews with Hungarian refugees. It eloquently explained the horror and moral bankruptcy of Communism in the context of the revolution. Through this book I understood exactly what the tour guide was saying and why she was saying it. I think this book is as relevant today as it was then. If you ever have a chance to visit this beautiful city, do it. You will not be disappointed. And read this book first. You will not be disappointed by that, either.

I read this book years ago, yet its theme and message still abide with me. Michener personalizes the plight of a whole nation under the iron grip of an alien ideology as brutal and merciless as it is stupid. As someone who has travelled extensively in Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe, I cannot but be saddened by the deliberate and systemic suppression and attempted annihilation during the last century of the rich variety of cultures that have grown and flourished in that part of the world.Unfortunately, the 1956 Hungarian revolution took place only within the borders of modern Hungary, not within historic Hungary. Consequently, Michener's book does not address the hardships of ethnic Hungarians in bordering lands, such as Romania. Because the 1956 uprising happened on the borders of the Iron Curtain, however, it provided Michener a brief opening through which he could view the horrors of Marxist-Leninist "scientific socialism." The Bridge at Andau brings these horrors to life for those of us in the Free World."Nonfictional" accounts of historical events tend to describe them impersonally, largely as sequences of governmental actions. Michener's novel drives home the consequences of the Yalta conference for the ordinary people who later had to pay the price for those actions. I recommend this book highly to anyone who wants to understand the personal devastation wrought by utopian ideologies such as Marxism.

When I first read about teenage children disabling tanks and killing the occupants with rocks, clubs and bottles filled with gasoline, I thought the Marines could learn a lot from these children. Their communication, teamwork and overwhelming dedication amazed me. I read about a 12-year-old boy who strapped a half-dozen grenades to his body, pulled a wire to pull all the pins and stepped in front of the tracks of a tank. After the tank ran him over and killed him, the grenades went off, derailing the tracks and disabling the tank, so that other children could throw gasoline bottles inside the turret to kill the drivers. I realized then this was not military mastery, but desperation spawned from people who had nothing left to live for. "It should not have happened," said the minister who told the story of the 12-year-old boy. "Somebody should have stopped such a child. But he knew what he was fighting against." "The Bridge at Andau," by James Albert Michener, is based on interviews with survivors of the 1956 Hungarian uprising against communist Soviet occupation. Written in 1957, the book was checked out of the Depot library five times during the late 50s and early 60s. From then on, it has silently gathered dust on the shelf. Within three years after the uprising, interest in the estimated 40,000 to 80,000 Hungarians slaughtered by the Soviets had vanished. This book tells the story of the Soviet expansionist theory which was not taught in the Woodland High School. Instructors provided amazingly lukewarm descriptions of Soviet Communist Theory as a philosophy of taking care of the common people. The "Bridge at Andau", in simple language and vivid imagery, describes the actions of brave and desperate people fighting to escape the domination of the "Red Bear." In the five days following the expulsion of the initial soviet troops, Hungarians prayed for American intervention which did not come. In the third and final phase of the fight for independence, the Soviets returned to Hungary in a fury of modern tanks and a mechanized army with hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had orders to shoot everyone and everything. "When the victorious Soviets finally entered the castle itself, the final bastion, only thirty young Hungarians remained to walk out proudly under the white flag of surrender," according to the book. "For three days they (teenage children) had withstood the terrible concentration of Soviet power, and they had conducted themselves as veritable heroes. The gallant Soviet commander waited until they were well clear of the walls; then with one burst of machine-gun fire, he executed the lot." This book not only tells the horrors of Soviet-occupied Hungary, but provides insight to all countries that struggled under Soviet reign. On its pages are the horrors of torturous militia which "encouraged" confessions from the most devout would-be communists. These crimes against humanity, similar in many instances to those suffered at

I was in Budapest this last spring when I heard about this book. Being in Hungary motivated me to read it. I found it to be a compelling and moving account of a courageous peoples' doomed revolt against a repressive regime. Two things struck me particularly. The first was Michener's prophetic pronouncement in his introduction that Communism would fall. It was unthinkable in the 1950's or even much more recently. But we have all lived to see country after country free themselves. The second thing was the story of the parents and children. It was gripping to read how parents had to assess when their children were mature enough for the parents to try to counteract the education their children were receiving from the communists. The parents taught them Hungarian history, poetry, culture and religious values. They took enormous risks, but the results were magnificent. Having friends who live in Budapest and friends whose families escaped from Hungary during the revolution made the book especially meaningful.

This book gives the answers to so many questions the daughter of a Hungarian immigrant has. At the age of 17, my father escaped with his father and brother in December, 1956. Equipped with three suits and a violin, my father escaped a regime which would not allow the winner of a national music competition, with a personal commendation from Zoltan Kodaly, to go to college. His father having been a professional military officer, and his grandfather, God forbid, having owned a department store (called Benyats for those of you who may remember), he and his family rightly saw no future in the Russian Communist system. With so much taken away, many of my relatives can offer no more than bitter anecdotes of their losses. Those left in Hungary under communism after 1956 had the distinct "title" of the country with the highest rate of heart disease and suicide in the world. How revealing and important it is to understand the "big picture", and to see why 250,000 Hungarians were desperate enough to leave family, friends, and property behind for what they value most from their semi-nomadic history and culture - the freedom to move.And as a footnote, all who came to America, including grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins became successful musicians, engineers, biologist, doctors. And all have gone back to visit Hungary.