Drawing from chilling first-hand accounts and full of extraordinary characters in the city caught between Hitler and Stalin, the author of The City of Oranges delivers a cinematic account of the grim, little-known events in wartime Budapest and Hungary's role in the Holocaust.
Budapest, autumn 1943. Four years into the war, Hungary is allied with Nazi Germany and the Hungarian capital is the Casablanca of central Europe. The city swirls with intrigue and betrayal, home to spies and agents of every kind. But Budapest remains at peace, an oasis in the midst of war where Allied POWs, and Polish and Jewish refugees find sanctuary. The riverside cafes are crowded and the city’s famed cultural life still thrives.
All that comes to an end in March 1944 when the Nazis invade. By the summer, Allied bombers are pounding its grand boulevards and historic squares. Budapest’s surviving Jewish population has been forcibly relocated to cramped, overcrowded Yellow Star houses. By late December, the city is surrounded and under siege from the Red Army. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians die in the savage siege as Budapest collapses into anarchy. Hungarian death squads roam the streets as the city’s Jews are forced into ghettos. Russian artillery pounds the city into smoking rubble as starving residents hack chunks of meat from dead, frozen horses.
Using newly uncovered diaries, documents, archival material and interviews with the last survivors, Adam LeBor brilliantly recreates life and death in the wartime city, the catastrophic fate of half of its Jewish population and the destruction of the siege.
Told through the lives of a cast of vivid, gripping characters, including glamorous aristocrats, spies, smugglers and SS Officers, a rebellious teenage Jewish schoolboy, Hungary's most popular actress and her spy chief lover, a Jewish businesswoman who negotiated with Adolf Eichmann, a Christian doctor hiding her Jewish neighbours and a teenage Hungarian soldier, the story of how Budapest slowly dies as the war destroys the city is utterly compelling.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781801100779
Number of pages: 512
Dimensions: 234 x 153 mm
This book cannot be read dispassionately. The portraits are vivid and alive. I fell in love with some characters and despised others ... A city is the sum of its people and LeBor juggles numerous stories with astounding agility, constructing an engrossing narrative without ever losing his way ... The book mirrors life - adversity mingling with joy. It deserves to be read twice, first to appreciate Budapest's complicated story and then to immerse oneself in the prose. - Gerard de Groot, The Times BOOK OF THE WEEK
Brilliant ... LeBor creates a compelling story of one of the least remembered episodes of recent European history. - Irish Times
LeBor skilfully depicts the war years in Budapest. - The Spectator
Powerful - Daily Mail
An immaculately researched book, written in a fluent and engaging style and an important addition to the library of Second World War histories. - Aspects of History
An important reminder of Europe's history ... A tale of exceptional people who will haunt and inspire your thoughts. - Crime Time
The Last Days of Budapest is a masterpiece. Immaculately researched, it is packed with large-than-life characters and revelations about the unknown espionage history of the Second World War. Adam LeBor’s vivid, taut prose brings the story of the ‘Casablanca of central Europe’ alive in glorious technicolour. From the naïve optimism of the late 1930s to the depths of depravity and bloodshed during the siege in winter 1944, LeBor takes the reader on an emotional rollercoaster. This is history as it should be written: utterly engrossing. - Malcolm Brabant, co-author of bestselling The Daughter of Auschwitz
This is an extraordinary book – an enthralling narrative that is full of extraordinary characters, both heroes and villains, and packed with the insights and subtle judgements that only someone with the author’s knowledge of, and love for, the city can provide. What happened in wartime Budapest is virtually unknown outside Hungary. Now thanks to Adam LeBor we have the story laid out in grim and absorbing detail, told with all the power and passion that a writer of his class can muster. - Patrick Bishop, author of Paris 1944: Occupation, Resistance, Liberation
From the first to the final page, The Last Days of Budapest is difficult to put down. Using sources which offer chilling first-hand accounts and personal insight, Adam LeBor expertly narrates one of the darkest periods in Hungary’s history. This is an important and overdue book, and a must-read in the field of Second World War history. - Sarah Louise Miller, author of The Women Behind the Few
The Last Days of Budapest is not only an enthralling tale of wartime espionage and spycraft. It is a beautifully rendered portrait of heroism, tragedy, betrayal, and violence in the final hours of a grand city caught between Hitler and Stalin. This superb account is not to be missed – and will haunt you. - David McCloskey, former CIA analyst and bestselling author of The Seventh Floor
The Last Days of Budapest is both beautifully written and revelatory, with the kind of quirky detail that confirms Adam LeBor’s love and fascination for his subject country. Pre-war Budapest comes alive as a nest of mischief and self-delusion, home for a beguiling cast of spies, adventurers, aristocratic lovelies, journalists, smugglers, thieves and fellow travellers... LeBor offers an unblinking account of the last spasms of a ruined city. Deeply shocking. And long overdue. - Graham Hurley, author of Turnstone
Terrific account of Budapest in the middle of the twentieth century, culminating in the collapse of all civilised values as the Nazis retreat in 1944 and the Russian army advances. Part-thriller, part-astonishing personal history, this is a must read for anyone wanting to know more about Hungary’s grim role in the Holocaust. The stories Adam LeBor tells will remain with you. - Nicholas Best, author of Five Days that Shocked the World
A staggering achievement. The Last Days of Budapest is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of European espionage, offering readers a riveting journey through Budapest’s turbulent past. This meticulously researched book delves into a complex web of astonishing intelligence operations, revealing how Budapest served as a crossroads for spies from East and West. - Charles Cumming, author of the BOX 88 series
A fascinating story of aristocratic spies, diplomats and clandestine operations – and one of the finest histories of Budapest in the twentieth century. - Helen Fry, author of Women in Intelligence: The Hidden History of Two World Wars
