As a child Yenni lives under the discipline of preparations for the war. In January 1945 her city is liberated by the Red Army and the Iron curtain closes in. Her account enables the reader to experience the life in middle Europe before the WW2, during and after.

Memoir,Biographical

Sundays are special. They are family days with clear chicken soup, home-made noodles, crumbed chicken, mashed potatoes and a cabbage stew. Just back from the swimming pool Yenni catches the hum of aeroplanes. Everyone looks up to the sky. In the distance a big cloud is lifting, The city is bombed.

Dear Svetya. We arrived, are healthy and well. Let me take you to a trip to Australia. If you are a tourist, it's easy. If you are a migrant it's a whole lot more difficult. The ordeal starts .... I can't write any more. You will have to take a holiday to read this letter. I write the rest next time

the city of Kassa (Hungarian) later named Kosice in now Slovak Republic, Vienna

Yes

Voyage and Return,Other

Happy Ending,Meaningful Message

Information not completed

Name: Yenni (Hungarian translation of Jenny)

Age: from 5 to 34

Gender: Female

Role: Emotional

Key Traits: Adventurous,Aspiring,Confident,Decisive,Educated,Leader,Outspoken,Skillful,Romantic,Sophisticated

Name: Yano (Slovak for John)

Age: 26 to 40

Gender: Male

Role: Antagonist

Key Traits: Aggressive,Charming,Complex,Educated

Name: Marta Pokorny- mother

Age: 36 and more

Gender: Female

Role: emotional

Key Traits: Aspiring,Charming,Educated,Sophisticated

Name: Marta Pokorny- mother

Age: up to 59

Gender: Female

Role: emotional

Key Traits: Aspiring,Charming,Decisive,Educated,Leader,Sophisticated,Skillful,Outspoken

Yenni is born in than a Hungarian city of Kassa. Her tale is the story of many, living in Europe. She finds herself sometimes as a spectator, but mostly as a participant in the thick of things from which, news are made of. As a child Yenni lives under the discipline of preparations for the war and with the knowledge of Jewish persecution she observes the disappearance of Jewish families. When her father is called into the army her protective mother moves Yenni and her two year old sister from one safe place to another in the effort to run away from the war. After the Iron curtain closes around her, she is under the spell of new ideology and embraces it with enthusiasm to become the first generation of socialist youth with the sense of real purpose. Yenni feels the duality of the regime and lives between the two polarities; the lingering culture and values of capitalism represented by her home and the new ideology of social equalism. She battles with the bad economy and her marriage and reaches a position of responsibility at work. The book takes the reader through the Hungarian revolution of 1956, travels in Iron curtain countries and black-marketing. The invasion of her own country by the USSR in 1968 is the last straw that shatters Yenni’s belief in the system and forces her to escape illegally, with the whole family. Whatever happens in Yenni’s life, she is always asked to take part, to make choices between two extremes, witnessing and feeling them both.

Eugenia Jenny Williams was born in 1936 in Kosice, in what is now the Slovak Republic. She and her family escaped to Vienna in 1969, before immigrating to Tasmania. She is married with two adult children and two grandchildren and now lives with her family in Hobart. She began writing in 1996. This is her first book.

Age: 18-34,35-54,55+

Target Gender: Universal

Information not completed

Status: Yes: with a Publisher

Publisher: Pluto Press Australia

Year Published: 2002

Yes

1 86403 149 2.