Faced with fascism, communism, and the 1956 Revolution, Csaba 
Teglas responded with ingenuity and hope. In Budapest Exit, he 
tells the story of his twenty-year quest for freedom.

    Teglas rummaged the scrap heap of World War II for anything he 
could sell to get food money for his family. The income from selling 
bits of rubber and ball bearings was often the family's only 
sustenance. Teglas and his family and friends lived in constant fear; 
some were even subjected to communist jails and torture chambers.

    Teglas protested, sometimes quietly, sometimes more vocally, 
against the Soviet and communist presence in Hungary. During the 
1956 revolution, he became more involved in the opposition. When it 
became clear that the revolutionaries would not succeed, he knew 
he had to leave. Teglas recounts his dramatic escape through the 
heavily guarded Iron Curtain and his subsequent journey to North 
America, where life as an immigrant presented new challenges.

    This memoir is Csaba Teglas's personal story of his youth, told 
from the point of view of a man with sons of his own. He found in 
America the freedom for which he had been searching, but he has 
raised his American sons to remain proud of their Hungarian 
heritage.

_________________________________________________________

CSABA TEGLAS is a retired city planning consultant. He has lived 
in White Plains, New York, with his Scottish-born wife, Rowena, 
since 1967.


Number Seven: Eastern European Studies