Kulturbrücke – Beiträge zur Internationalen Kultur und Zusammenarbeit. Eine Schriftenreihe der Auslandsgesellschaft Deutschland e.V.

Memoirs of contradictions - ponderings on history

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Without knowledge of the past, we cannot understand the present, and without precise knowledge of the present we cannot shape the future.
It is with this conviction that István Tatár guides the reader through his Twentieth Century.
In his ›Memoirs of contradictions‹ he illustrates the close relationships between world events and his own life, a life that mirrors the incomprehensible contradictions of the past century, including the unforeseen horrors of the years between 1933 and 1945.
Born into an educated Jewish family in Budapest in1920, István Tatár shows how our destiny is not only determined by our parents and our upbringing, but also by politics and what happens in the wider world. This he does with irony and a keen eye for overarching connections.