The story of a central European : the memoirs of Countess Katinka Szapâary

The author, Countess Katinka Szapary, recalls the 1920s and 1930s when she was growing up in rural Hungary, her experiences of the Second World War, (particularly the Russian occupation 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, as aristocrats, were being subjected to the deportations and executions of the Stalinist regime.

The memoirs include details of past events that occurred in her family, as told to her by elderly relatives, in some cases going back to 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.

The author's own personal life was not without incident.

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.