About the author: From a youthful observer in war-torn Hungary, his native land caught between the swastika and the red star, Endre B. Gastony evolved into a student of history at the University of Oregon. As professor at Augustana University, he combined teaching, with research and writing on the topics of nationalism, international events, and Hungarian history. Historical guiding principles: Leopold von Ranke’s advice, chronicle the past “as it really happened,” has been faithfully followed in this brief memoir based upon my personal observation. The author is mindful of Baruch Spinoza’s plea, “ridicule not, bewail not, nor scorn human actions, but understand them.” Historical observations: The task of preventing germane historical information from slipping through my fingers has been my decisive incentive for leaving this brief autobiographical record behind, based upon my youthful eyewitness observations made in the war-weary Hungarian city of Debrecen during the years of 1943-1945. But there has been another helpful motivation at work as well, prompted by a quote of Northrop Frye: “… Underneath all the complexity of human life” we uneasily “stare at an alien nature still haunting us,” and ponder of the “problem of surmounting it….” So lending a modest hand to the slow and incremental process of human self-understanding has also entered my mind.
