Love and Survival in Budapest ─ The Memoir of Artur Renyi

This book was written by Artur Renyi in the late 1940s as a memoir and gift to his only child, Dr Alfred Renyi, noted Hungarian mathematician and the father of probability theory. The memoir is written in the form of a diary and chronicles the life of Artur, a linguist and engineer, and his wife, Borbala Alexander, a photographer who just happens to be the younger sister of the eminent psychoanalyst Franz Alexander, the founder of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. It covers the years 1921 through to 1948. This work was translated by the author’s granddaughter and great granddaughter and edited by Dr Alexander’s granddaughter.

This unique work documents the fate of Hungarian Jews in Budapest long before, during, and after the Nazi regime. Artur Renyi writes compellingly and grippingly about fascism in Hungary and the persecutory laws against Jews, life in pre-World War II Budapest, and the air strikes on Budapest. He details what happened when 250,000 Jews were forced to leave their homes in Budapest. It is most of all an intimate tale of a family written after World War II, when things changed dramatically in Eastern Europe. It is a love letter from father to son and tells of one family’s courage, compassion, and integrity during a time when all hell was breaking loose around them.