Hungary Archives - Tell History

Antisemitism in Budapest during WWII

Dorit Oliver-Wolff fled Belgrade when it was bombed in 1941, escaping to Budapest, Hungary. She lived there peaceably for six months before a Hungarian woman spat in her face, a traumatic introduction to the antisemitism that would shape her early life.

Storyteller: Dorit Oliver-Wolff
Date of Story: 1941
Location of Story: Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK
Date: 29 April, 2016

Covering the Velvet Revolution

Photographer Brian Harris had a very eventful 1989 while working for the Independent. The last major event he covered was the so-called ‘Velvet Revolution’ in Czechoslovakia.

Storyteller: Brian Harris

Date of Story: 17 November-25 December, 1989
Location of Story: Prague, Czechoslovakia
Location: Outside Cambridge, UK
Date: 6 April, 2016

Wenceslas Square, Prague, during the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Photograph by Brian Harris for The Independent © Taken from …and then the Prime Minister hit me… by Brian Harris.

In the 1970s Brian Harris worked in the heart of London’s Fleet Street, freelancing for The Sun, The Times, News of the World, the BBC and United Press International, covering everything from IRA bombings to celebrity news, until joining The Times as its youngest ever staff photographer aged twenty-five. When The Independent launched in 1986, Brian became its first staff photographer, playing a key role in forming the renowned Indy style of intelligent editorial photography. In his fourteen years at The Independent Brian travelled the world to cover the stories that defined the era.

Since going freelance in 1999, Brian has staged several solo exhibitions, notably at Photofusion Photography Centre, and has contributed to exhibitions organised by the British Press Photographers’ Association. In 2006-7 he collaborated with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on Remembered, a major illustrated book of his photographs and series of international touring exhibitions chronicling the CWGC’s work caring for the graves of over 1.7 million Commonwealth war dead.

The BBC has made three short documentaries about his working methods and he has debated live on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze: ‘An experience more terrifying than walking through a minefield on the Falkland Islands.’

In the spring of 2016 Brian’s book ‘…and then the Prime Minister hit me…’ a 320 page hard back book of images and essays covering his life’s work. The book is currently being printed and bound in England and will be available from mid-late April 2016.

Looking for the person that saved us from Auschwitz

Agnes Grunwald-Spier tells the story about how she and her family survived the Holocaust, having been born to a Jewish family in Nazi-occupied Hungary in 1944. She describes her father’s experience as a forced laborer, and how she and her mother narrowly escaped deportation to Auschwitz after a mysterious intervention. After this person saved their lives, they were sent to the Jewish ghetto, where they were eventually liberated by the Soviet Army.

Storyteller: Agnes Grunwald-Spier

Date of Story: July, 1944-January, 1946
Location of Story: Budapest, Hungary
Location: London, UK
Date: 28 February, 2016

Agnes’ parents’ wedding day, Budapest, March 1942

Agnes with her parents, Budapest, January 1946

Who Betrayed the Jews? is a groundbreaking study by Agnes Grunwald-Spier that examines the various ways Jews were betrayed by their fellow countrymen during the Holocaust. Click here to find out more about the book or click here to visit Agnes’ website.