[This is a review I wrote in 2009]

** Read this and be moved by the plight of a young innocent girl trapped in the midst of the horrors of war. **

How could anyone read this memoir and rate it at anything less than 5 stars? It is an achingly honest, heartfelt, no-holds-barred story of the author's own experiences in occupied Budapest during and after the Second World War, including the family's bid to escape first the city of Budapest, and later the country, to seek sanctuary in Austria. The atrocities that faced 15-year-old Christine in 1944 must have been horrendous to recall to memory and put down on paper. Christine's story, like Anne Frank's diary, is a Second World War account that should be read by all. Together with her parents and neighbours, in the cellars of their well-appointed apartment block, Christine is faced with relentless hunger, boredom, fear, death, sickness and terrible thirst. To venture upstairs into the apartments is to take one's life into one's own hands; to venture out onto the street, for water or for other commodities, is an indescribable risk. Over 40,000 civilians died in the battle that raged between the Germans and Russians in Budapest, from the end of 1944, and throughout much of 1945.

Christine's story doesn't end with the Second World War, but continues with the communist occupation, and the family's bid to escape to their humble cottage in the country, lying low to escape notice. Circumstances again become intolerable and the family make a bid for what they think will be their freedom in Austria, but which turns out to be a bleak refugee camp. Christine's story continues with yet another move to escape control and form a new life in another country, but this too will unsurprisingly be beset with difficulties as Christine faces prejudice and competition for work. Through it all this young girl is kept going by her ambition to write, her love and passion for writing, and her firm belief that she will one day succeed in this goal of hers to write successfully and to be read by many people.

Superbly written; each scene is brilliantly and vividly described, like a really good novel, without being in the least bit self-pitying. You can only emerge from the pages of this memoir full of admiration for the courage and self-determination for the young Christine and the many others of her generation who had the same horrors and the same tough future to face. An outstanding wartime survival story. ( )

Reading the back of this book I had expected something quite different. Perhaps because it is a first person, true narrative I should allow for this but still I found the writing poor and the story jumpy. I really found it hard to follow. ( )

I ( )

The story of an Hungarian teenager during the Soviet siege of Budapest from January-February 1945. Harrowing story of survival in war. Good personal account, easy to read. ( )

This is a harrowing and realistic account of a city at war through the eyes of a child, back before such accounts became popular (Zlata Filipovic's diary, anyone?) However, I don't understand why the second half was included. It too was interesting, but it had so little to do with the first part that they might as well have been separate books. ( )