The historian’s latest work When Freedom Beckons: The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Jewish Hungarian Journey to Australia will be launched this month.
Sydney high school teacher, historian and prolific author Vasilis Vasilas has announced his latest offering When Freedom Beckons: The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Jewish Hungarian Journey to Australia will be launched at the Sydney Jewish Museum by the University of Sydney’s Dr Michael Abrahams-Sprod tomorrow.
Vasilas has already published numerous titles that explore and document the personal narratives of individuals in the Greek, Estonian, and Ukrainian communities. Now he has taken inspiration from the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, turning his attention to the stories of the Hungarian community.
As with most projects that have caught the historian’s interest, the initial idea has continued to evolve and morph into something different taking a Jewish Hungarian angle.
“There was a continual flow of interested participants and it got to the point where I was acquiring enough Jewish Hungarian stories to decide this will be a Jewish Hungarian book,” Vasilas told Neos Kosmos.
While he expects some questions to arise around his decision to separate the story of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and its consequences, and focusing on the Hungarian Jewish community, he points out the distinctive nature of Hungary’s Jewish story.
Read the article by Billy Cotsis in Neos Kosmos.