The author of these memoirs, Countess Katinka Szapary, was born
into an extremely well connected family of the Austro-Hungarian
aristocracy. In them, she recalls the 1920's and 1930's when she
was growing up in rural Hungary, her experiences of the Second
World War, the Russian invasion of eastern Europe, and her post-war
experiences when she was employed as a translator by the British
occupying forces in Vienna, at which time her family were being
subjected to the deportations and executions of the Stalinist
regime. The memoirs, which were only discovered after the author's
death, include details of past events that occurred in her family,
as told to her by elderly relatives, including their involvement in
the Hungarian uprising against the Habsburgs of 1848. Countess
Szapary was a keen observer, herself. As a result, across the pages
of her memoirs pass a panoply of characters - of eccentric
relatives, family retainers, serfs, highwaymen, aristocrats,
gypsies, priests, members of royalty, celebrities (including
Marlene Dietrich), and post-war black marketers. With the fall of
Budapest to the Russians in February 1945, Countess Szapary fled,
in front of the advancing Russian army, on horseback, and often
under bombardment, until she was able to cross the Austrian border
- only to be taken for a spy by the German Waffen SS. In 1948,
Countess Szapary journeyed to England, as an enemy alien, in search
of some lost Esterhazy jewels, and remained in England, working at
the Austrian Embassy, until her death on January 23rd, 1985."
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