Girl Left Behind

At age five, Judy Temes was living with her parents and brother in a small town near Hungary's southern border. Unlike most, the family had comforts: a roomy apartment, a television, even a vacation home. What more could anyone want? But for her father, a doctor and a survivor of the Holocaust, living among the people who stood by as his family was taken to their deaths in cattle cars had become untenable.

On a summer night in 1969, the family packed the car for what was supposed to be a vacation to Vienna. Only this was no vacation. They were escaping Hungary's totalitarian regime, using tourist visas that allowed entry into a Western country. Such visas, however, came at a high price. One child had to be left behind. This was the government's way to ensure that citizens who left the country would return.

The child left behind was "Juditka, " who would go on to live with her grandmother in a tiny lakeside Hungarian village. When, if ever, would she see her family again? No one knew.

© 2021 Saint Julian Press, Inc. (Rafbók): 9781733023368

Útgáfudagur

Rafbók: 15 juni 2021