Customer Reviews

Bridge at Andau

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Michener is one of the great historians of the 20th century. Not only is his research vast and impeccable, but Michener is able to translate his research into a wonderfully readable book. The Bridge at Andau is no exception.

In the mid-1950's Michener was living in Austria, along the border with Hungary. From this unique vantage point, he was able to observe the large exodus of Hungarians fleeing their communist nation. His observations and discussions with these refugees brought many aspects of the communist regime to light.

He was able to bring the reader into a communist state and to reveal its inner workings, including how the government controlled the masses. At the time, this was no easy task, as the Iron Curtain was nearly impenetrable to Westerners. Nevertheless, Michener was able to piece together countless interviews with these refugees and create an accurate picture of life under the red flag.

He discussed nearly every facet of the politics of the Hungarian people. He told of intellectuals beginning their theoretical revolution, and he told of the students who were the first to pick up arms against the police forces and Soviet army. Michener also spoke of the workers, the bones of communism, and how they turned their back on the system and tried to destroy it.

Unfortunately, the revolution failed and the Hungarians were forced to flee or face dire repercussions. And Michener was there to chronicle their tales.

The Bridge at Andau is a fascinating book and a document of Cold War history. It is definitely worth reading.

I read this book years ago, yet its theme and message still abide with me. Michener personalizes the plight of a whole nation under the iron grip of an alien ideology as brutal and merciless as it is stupid. As someone who has travelled extensively in Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe, I cannot but be saddened by the deliberate and systemic suppression and attempted annihilation during the last century of the rich variety of cultures that have grown and flourished in that part of the world.

Unfortunately, the 1956 Hungarian revolution took place only within the borders of modern Hungary, not within historic Hungary. Consequently, Michener's book does not address the hardships of ethnic Hungarians in bordering lands, such as Romania. Because the 1956 uprising happened on the borders of the Iron Curtain, however, it provided Michener a brief opening through which he could view the horrors of Marxist-Leninist "scientific socialism." The Bridge at Andau brings these horrors to life for those of us in the Free World.

"Nonfictional" accounts of historical events tend to describe them impersonally, largely as sequences of governmental actions. Michener's novel drives home the consequences of the Yalta conference for the ordinary people who later had to pay the price for those actions. I recommend this book highly to anyone who wants to understand the personal devastation wrought by utopian ideologies such as Marxism.

I had just returned from Budapest, a beautiful city still digging out from 45 years of Communist mis-rule. The tour guide, a lovely lady in her mid-50's with a lilting accent, spoke of the Russians with disdain. She positively spat out the word "Russian." As one who had majored in political science during the 1970's and who was familiar with the 1956 revolution I had a visceral understanding of what fueled her venom.

When I returned to the United States I bought this book, which was written in 1957 based on hundreds of interviews with Hungarian refugees. It eloquently explained the horror and moral bankruptcy of Communism in the context of the revolution. Through this book I understood exactly what the tour guide was saying and why she was saying it. I think this book is as relevant today as it was then.

If you ever have a chance to visit this beautiful city, do it. You will not be disappointed. And read this book first. You will not be disappointed by that, either.

This true recounting of life under Communist rule in 1956 Hungary offers everything Solzenizen's Gulag Archipelago does, in about one-third the pages.
Like a well-written "who dunnit" mystery, Michener introduces characters that are all related to the central episode (a revolt against Soviet occupation) and ties them back to "the scene of the crime" in their own unique ways.
The radically different lives of each individual under Communist "freedom fighting" all arrive at the same intellectual conclusion after all: Communists suck.
The final two chapters are a hodge-podge of snapshots of refugees' stories and invective against American policies and is not as smooth as the rest of the book's intricate narratives. However,burried in it is the book's hidden treasure: a one-paragraph report of an New York Union Bigwig who was deported to Hungary as a Communist. In this single paragraph he is gratefully escaping with his life from his Worker's Paradise.

Read The Bridge at Andau to know what is happening in North Korea as you read this.

I was in Budapest this last spring when I heard about this book. Being in Hungary motivated me to read it. I found it to be a compelling and moving account of a courageous peoples' doomed revolt against a repressive regime. Two things struck me particularly. The first was Michener's prophetic pronouncement in his introduction that Communism would fall. It was unthinkable in the 1950's or even much more recently. But we have all lived to see country after country free themselves. The second thing was the story of the parents and children. It was gripping to read how parents had to assess when their children were mature enough for the parents to try to counteract the education their children were receiving from the communists. The parents taught them Hungarian history, poetry, culture and religious values. They took enormous risks, but the results were magnificent. Having friends who live in Budapest and friends whose families escaped from Hungary during the revolution made the book especially meaningful.

Thousands of Hungarians were killed by Soviet forces in November 1956. Their crime? Taking back their country from foreign leaders. At that time, 200,000 more fled Hungary in the months following, knowing that the oppressive, murderous communist leaders were not going to show mercy to those who were involved.

James Michener's "Bridge at Andau" tells the story of those fleeing. He was there to see it, and told what he saw. Michener's storytelling style is a kind of John Grisham mix of detail and personality. He took real lives of people struggling to survive and presented them to the horrified world. Michener researched his story in Austria and at the bridge itself.

Michener published the book in 1957, while the crush of the Hungarian people continued. America refused to assist the pleas of the Hungarian revolutionaries, based on a combination of American opinion, and a real concern that WWIII might break out in the midst of the Cold War. Instead, we focused on the Suez Canal. Unfortunately, the Hungarian people suffered.

Andau is an Austrian city at the Hungarian border. It was called Mosontarcsa, as part of Hungary, until 1921. It was a small village, but a key point for refugees escaping.

The value of reading this today is it shows us the culture of Hungary as it was during the Soviet occupation. It shows the complex, and often compromising position average Hungarian citizens had as they were part of the communist party. Unwilling, but joining to have access to things, they lived daily through trials unlike any we have known in the USA. When, in 1956, a revolution began, many dropped their party inclinations and either fought or fled. Many died in the process.

On one hand, this provides a slice of the events, as chronicled at one location. However, it also gives us a broader view of what the Hungarian people were wanting, what they were missing, and why so many were willing to die for freedom. It also shows the consequences of one country trying to fight for freedom alone. It inspires us of great heroes, and reminds us of the tensions our leaders are exposed to when it comes to bringing freedom to another country.

Michener acknowledges the weaknesses of the anecdotes of each person he spoke with. How does he know they are true? He explains in a postscript how most names have been changed and how some stories could be proved, while others could not.

To get an accurate, historical view of what happened in 1956, it is best to read something published later, after many more facts were available. Dozens of great books exist to meet this need. To read a significant fictionalized collection of personal stories, "Bridge at Andau" is as good as it gets.

I fully recommend "Bridge at Andau" by James A. Michener.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

On October 23, 1956, student protesters in the Hungarian capital city of Budapest uttered grievances against the Soviet puppet government in place at the time. It turned into a riot, and when secret police began shooting the protesters, the riot became an insurrection that eventually drove out Soviet forces from Hungary. Early on the morning of November 4, the Russians returned and crushed the insurrection mercilessly, restoring communist rule. Some 200,000 Hungarian refugees fled the country, most of who went to neighboring Austria, across a bridge near the community of Andau. It was here that James Albert Michener interviewed several hundred of these refugees, who reflected their experiences in the uprising as well as the life they had endured in Hungary up to then. This comprises his book under review. It was first published in 1957.

Students of the Hungarian Uprising (sometimes called the `Hungarian Revolution') will likely find Michener's work of some value, especially if one wishes to see the uprising through the eyes of its participants. Michener recounts the experiences of families and individual "freedom fighters" seeking a better life and alternative to Soviet domination and repression. A particularly valuable and interesting section is Chapter 6, in which Michener writes about a typical AVO man, a member of the secret police (Hungarian: Allam Vedelmi Osztag, more correctly known as the AVH, or Allam Vedelmi Hatosag). It was these individuals, often from insecure and unhappy lives that formed the backbone of Communist rule inside Hungary, promoting terror, and fears of torture and execution into the Hungarian populace. Michener places a tremendous emphasis in his book on the heroism demonstrated by the patriots of Hungary that rebelled against the Soviets, fighting off tanks with Molotov cocktails, aging rifles, or their bare hands. Particularly alarming are his accounts of Communist Party members and working-class people, who were supposed to be the founders of communism, who raised arms and vengefully attacked and drove out the Soviets from their nation!

There are, however, problems with Michener's work; they are not a criticism of Michener's own integrity. First, the fact that his book appeared in 1957, a very short time following the uprising and in the midst of the Cold War, a bias is evident in his words; his work could very easily have been written to promote further dissent against international communism, as it undoubtedly did. Michener was a very popular sensationalist in his day. Then again, the Russians and Khrushchev have only themselves to blame for the condemnation they received, as it was the Russians who returned to Budapest and mercilessly shot people not even associated with the popular uprising.

Second, his book pays little, if any, attention to the crucial politics behind the uprising. As his book was written too soon following the event, this is to be expected. It is only following many years and indeed, the eventual collapse of communism in Europe that the full story could be told and revealed.

Third, a number of crucial events following 1945 took place in Hungary that eventually exploded into the popular uprising of October-November 1956. Michener does not detail these crucial events; hence his book provides inadequate and only sporadic background information of the uprising. For instance, he does not take care to detail how the Communist Party remained highly unpopular throughout Hungary following the Second World War, yet were imposed on the people through vote rigging and Russian backing, as well as through the AVO and terror. His work only provides details of the moral and social effects of the uprising on Hungarians. The book is an interesting and sometimes exciting read, though it is far from a complete look at this event, which was so soon forgotten outside Hungary.

This book is a very true account of what happened during the tragic Hungarian Revolution. As a Hungarian-American, I was fascinated to learn more about the history of Hungary. It is a first-hand view as witnessed by James A. Michener. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in European history. Good book, but not your typical Michenor read.

Before I read this book I knew very little about the Hungarian Revolution. Now I know why. The American government did not support the revolution as it had pledged it would. This book makes me wonder about the other historical occurences that we never here about. What else has happened?

I read Bridge at Andau while in Budapest this spring. It was amazing to be in the places where this terrible history took place while reading Michener's account of the events. Two points were apparent to me; 1. I was surprised to realize that this history is overshadowed by other events in eastern Europe, 2. The book was written at the height of McCarthyism and must be taken with a small grain of salt. The stories told about the revolution of 1956 are no less legitimate or compelling than at the time the book was penned, but the purpose of the book was different. Michener wrote a novel that was to serve as a warning to anyone who might have romantic ideals about the evil communists that were percieved to be ready to destroy America. This is a great story about about courageous people. Unfortunately it may be misinterperted as soft sell propoganda about why capitalism is better than communism.