ESCAPE ’56

A Budapest family reluctantly pulls up deep roots to flee in the wake of the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

This account of a once-prosperous family struggling under the postwar Communist government centers on the relatively sheltered world of 10-year-old Erzsébet Molnár, with point-of-view shifts allowing ugly incidents—like Russian troops shooting people down at random—to be witnessed by older characters. The tale largely tracks the slow sea change as Erzsi’s parents go from chafing at the drab, enforced conformity of daily life and recalling better days before the war to accepting that, for all that they love their country, the best chances for a fresh start and safety for their two daughters lie in flight. So it is that they join the thousands of other refugees who make their way over the border to Austria in the wake of the uprising’s violent aftermath. From there, Panchyk seems in a hurry to finish his story, as he quickly sends the Molnárs to a waiting apartment in America—on the strength of a letter from a relative urging them not to be like the Jews who had a chance to escape Hungary but refused to run from the Nazis because they didn’t want to leave their material assets behind (a judgment that is not questioned in the text)—and closes upon their arrival, largely prior to actually encountering difficulties with money, language, and cultural differences.

A stressful refugee journey relayed unevenly.