Jay P. Greene's Blog

(Guest post by Jonathan Butcher)

Enemies of the People: My family’s journey to America, by Kati Marton (2009).

George Orwell’s 1984 is an epoch of dystopian storytelling.  Dozens of books and movies have tried since to recreate the idea of an oppressive, conspiratorial state and the overmatched citizens who attempt to free themselves.  From similar novels, such as Man in the High Castle, to recent films such as The Matrix and V for Vendetta, plotlines have morphed over the years, but the general concept is the same.

Nothing is recycled about Kati Marton’s life, however, and Hungarian oppression was real; she lived 1984.  Enemies of the People is her family’s biography of living, being hunted and captured, and, finally, escaping the brutal yet vulnerable totalitarian regime of post-World War II Hungary.  While the country’s leadership was feared by Hungarians, we are told a complex tale of how international pressures and varying levels of Soviet influence kept leaders looking over their shoulders in an attempt to gain political advantage, either from the West or the East.

The Marton’s knew every detail.  Kati’s parents were correspondents for the Associated Press and UP (what would become UPI) and had more access than any other reporters to both the American presence in Budapest and national leadership.  In fact, shortly before his arrest, Endre Marton, Kati’s father, had a memorable face-to-face confrontation with “Stalinist stooge” Matyas Rakosi, then in power.  Rakosi was well aware of the Martons’ reputation for keeping the West appraised of the oppression in Hungary: “Why should I talk to you?  You won’t write the truth anyway.”  Not Rakosi’s truth, certainly.  Endre and his wife, Ilona, were valuable assets for Western press outlets and well-known in press rooms.  The New York Times’s front-page articles on the Marton’s imprisonment were embarrassing to the Rakosi regime and critical to the pair’s release.  The Marton’s would be recognized for their courageous reporting after the Soviet resurgence in Hungary with the George Polk Memorial Award in 1957.

There are some distractions from the spy games in Enemies.  Kati is honest about her parents’ flaws, but she is also warmly candid on the way in which imprisonment strengthened—and even may have saved—Endre and Ilona’s marriage.  What happened to Kati and her sister, Julia, while their parents were in prison is told with a cold stare; she is not bitter, but the pain is almost too much to describe with any emotion.

Three plot elements kept me turning pages in Enemies: first, Kati knew almost nothing of the espionage going on during her childhood, and Enemies allows one to re-live Kati’s childhood along with her as she uncovers the AVO (secret police) files on her family.  She was blissfully ignorant of the grim details surrounding her parents’ knowledge of and attempts to avoid AVO surveillance and capture.  Second, the events of her parents’ separate arrests, their release one year later, and their daring escape with their daughters in the middle of the night, dodging Soviet tanks along the way, makes for gripping reading.

Third, and most importantly, Enemies of the People is a reminder that the United States is unique.  Freedom is a gift, and people recognize when they do not have it and so will chase it.  The Marton’s story is a sophisticated one, involving betrayal and espionage but also periods of calm and hopeful expectation of a better life.  Yet amidst the details, Kati Marton cannot help but emphasize that her parents knew the American way of life was free of the fear and despondency in Hungary.  Freedom of thought, speech and responsible action were absolutely vital to the Marton’s, and for as long as they could, they practiced these things in Hungary until they had no choice but to flee.

Throughout the book there is a hopeful thought that persists with the reader but goes unspoken by the Marton’s: there is always America.  If things become unbearable (which they did), or if Endre and Ilona are ever released (they finally were), they could always turn to their contacts in America and try to escape.  And when they reached America, they would be safe—the Marton’s were convinced of this.  As long as there was America, there was hope.