Escapes from Behind the Iron Curtain

The author was accused of sabotage on the 10th anniversary of the 1956 revolution. He was 17 years old. He tried to escape through the Hungarian-Yugoslav border with one of his classmates. Caught by border patrol, he was jailed and treated very badly. He barely survived the month-long ordeal. Stamped as an enemy of the state, he was taken to a labor camp at age 19: he had to do forced labor instead of regular military service. Against all odds, he was able to break free from the communist bloc at age 23. Of course, given the brainwashing his generation was subjected to, when he reached the Italian shore, swimming from Yugoslavia during a night in August of 1973, his quest for freedom was just beginning. After spending 6 months in Italy, he was admitted to the USA as a political refuge. In 1976, after the communist governments signed the Human Rights Declaration at the 1975 Helsinki Conference, he believed that the amnesty the Hungarian government issued was credible and returned to his homeland. How he managed to free himself again and survive the torture he had to endure when captured on the Yugoslav-Italian border in the fall of 1977 is also described in "Escapes from behind the Iron Curtain".