A Nation Adrift: The 1944–1945 Wartime Diaries of Miksa Fenyő (Helena History Press)

Miksa Fenyő (1877–1972) a Hungarian writer and intellectual served as member of parliament and briefly was a member of the Hungarian cabinet. He was targeted by the Hungarian fascists and Hitler and had to go into hiding in 1944 after Hungary was occupied by its German allies. This memoir is his diary of the ten months in which he was in hiding. Written by an erudite, well-informed man who, while moving from safe haven to safe haven, nevertheless is able to look at the events of this period with his intellect, who was aware of what was happening in his country and the atrocities being perpetuated in its name, but who never lost his spirit and his hope. Fenyő's fear was never for himself but for his family and for his life long friends. This is a powerful diary and a "real time" recounting of one of the most devastating and shameful periods of Hungarian history. Translated by his son, Mario Fenyő a well known historian and translator, this book which is a valuable recounting of the period that has long deserved to be made available to the Anglophone reader is at last available in English. There is no doubt that it will take its place amongst the most powerful diaries written about the Holocaust.