Between the Lines: The Diary of Margit Kassai

Margit Kassai uses her quick thinking and wit to survive the Nazi occupation of Budapest in 1944, the terror of the extremist Arrow Cross regime and the Soviet siege of the city until the early months of 1945. Jewish by birth but a convert to Lutheranism, Margit knows this makes little difference to the antisemitic officials and manages to elude roundups by working in children’s homes under a false identity. As hunger forces Margit to travel across the bombed-out city to look for food and take care of the children and those she loves, she knows she is always one wrong step from an explosion. Margit’s diary, addressed to her husband who has been taken away for forced labour, is written with a wry self-deprecation, an unflinching eye for details and a kindness that shines through her own desperation. Stuck between the Soviet front and Nazi and Hungarian Arrow Cross persecutors, Margit asks her husband to read Between the Lines of her darkly humorous true story.