Red Star, Blue Star [antikvár]

Preface - For more than three thousand years Jews lived two parallel lives. One was the life of religion that provided the comforting feelings of brotherhood and stability, continuity and familiarity. The other was life in the secular world. It tested and tested again the will of the Jews to survive, their resolve and ingenuity in fending off the dangers and overcoming the obstacles outside the protection of family and community. That adults should experience such tribulation was taken for granted. But children ?There was a time, not too long ago, when Jewish children had no childhood, when growing up did not exist. Children are supposed to play, go to school, play soccer, take ballet classes or just "hang out" with friends. They are not supposed to live in overcrowded ghettos, be pushed into cattle cars and perish in extermination camps. They are not supposed to be orphans and be punished for their religious beliefs and what their parents had done for a living.The child survivors of the Holocaust experienced all, but one that they barely escaped, of those things. Yet when the war ended, they picked up the pieces of their shattered lives and wasted no time in trying to catch up with the rest of the world. And had it not been for one thing, the Iron Curtain, the Jewish children of Eastern Europe might very well have done it.The narratives in Red Star, Blue Star were written by adults who were Jewish children and adolescents in Hungary when in 1948 it became a Soviet satellite. Soon thereafter all walks of life were politicized, society was turned upside down. The Communists promoted the welfare and interests of workers and peasants. Anyone who did not fit the mold became an outcast. Living in a Communist