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Unless correspondents ask us not to, this Website will post selected letters that it receives and invite open debate. |
Robert
Henderson
of Longwood, USA,
writes on Saturday, October 6, 2001
Thank you for writing about Hungary
I
want to thank you for posting your book
on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution for free on your
website.
Earlier this year I downloaded it, read it, and now I know a good deal about the bloodshed caused by the Soviets on the land of my maternal ancestors. In March [2001], I had the pleasure of traveling to Hungary for a quick visit, and by a great stroke of luck, the elderly gentleman sitting next to me on the 9 hour flight happened to be a former revolutionary who was forced to flee in '56 to Austria, and then later to New York.
We spent almost the entire flight discussing the conflict, in which he was a rifle-wielding 16 year old boy facing a mechanized and very determined foe. Throughout our conversation it seemed rather surreal that just a few decades ago mere children were fighting for their lives in such a revolt against communist tyranny.
Had I not read your book, I would have been hard pressed to believe that this architect sitting next to me had been forced into an exile until 1989, leaving behind his family for a cause I could not comprehend. Thankfully, your well written and exhaustively researched book did what a scholarly book is supposed to do, and that is draw the reader in and open up the past as best as possible. Thank you again for taking the time to tell the real story of 1956.
David Irving