Bridge at Andau

But there was a bridge at Andau, on the Austrian border, and if a Hungarian could reach that bridge, he was nearly free. It was about the most inconsequential bridge in Europe, but by an accident of history it became, for a few flaming weeks, one of the most important bridges in the world, for across its unsteady planks fled the soul of a nation....

Here is James A. Michener at his most gripping, with a historic account of a people in desperate revolt, a true story as searing and unforgettable as any of his bestselling works of fiction.

In the mid-1950's Michener was living in Austria, along the border with Hungary. From this unique vantage point, he was able to observe the large exodus of Hungarians fleeing their communist nation. His observations and discussions with these refugees brought many aspects of the communist regime to light.

He was able to bring the reader into a communist state and to reveal its inner workings, including how the government controlled the masses. At the time, this was no easy task, as the Iron Curtain was nearly impenetrable to Westerners. Nevertheless, Michener was able to piece together countless interviews with these refugees and create an accurate picture of life under the red flag.

He discussed nearly every facet of the politics of the Hungarian people. He told of intellectuals beginning their theoretical revolution, and he told of the students who were the first to pick up arms against the police forces and Soviet army. Michener also spoke of the workers, the bones of communism, and how they turned their back on the system and tried to destroy it.

Unfortunately, the revolution failed and the Hungarians were forced to flee or face dire repercussions. And Michener was there to chronicle their tales.

The Bridge at Andau is a fascinating book and a document of Cold War history. It is definitely worth reading.


Hidden History   March 14, 2000
Helen Gallinger (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

I was totally blown away by this book. There were some parts of it that made me cry, because it seemed that these people suffered in silence. It also made me angry, since it showed the hypocrisy of both the communist Russians that savagely put down these revolts; and how the Americans did nothing to help the Hungarians become a democracy. As a Westerner, I feel that we let these people down, and this book shows it by how the author attempts to apologize for America's non-action. This book is a wake-up call for those would-be communists out there. It is also a wakeup call for all those people who pay lip-service to America's dedication to the free world. This book is important because not only did it show how communism failed; it also showed how America, when it was faced with the ultimatew test to defend it's ideology, failed as well. Read this book, if it's the only one you'll read this year.


Eyewitnesses of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising   December 31, 2001
P. Bjel (Richmond Hill, Canada)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful

On October 23, 1956, student protesters in the Hungarian capital city of Budapest uttered grievances against the Soviet puppet government in place at the time. It turned into a riot, and when secret police began shooting the protesters, the riot became an insurrection that eventually drove out Soviet forces from Hungary. Early on the morning of November 4, the Russians returned and crushed the insurrection mercilessly, restoring communist rule. Some 200,000 Hungarian refugees fled the country, most of who went to neighboring Austria, across a bridge near the community of Andau. It was here that James Albert Michener interviewed several hundred of these refugees, who reflected their experiences in the uprising as well as the life they had endured in Hungary up to then. This comprises his book under review. It was first published in 1957.

Students of the Hungarian Uprising (sometimes called the `Hungarian Revolution') will likely find Michener's work of some value, especially if one wishes to see the uprising through the eyes of its participants. Michener recounts the experiences of families and individual "freedom fighters" seeking a better life and alternative to Soviet domination and repression. A particularly valuable and interesting section is Chapter 6, in which Michener writes about a typical AVO man, a member of the secret police (Hungarian: Allam Vedelmi Osztag, more correctly known as the AVH, or Allam Vedelmi Hatosag). It was these individuals, often from insecure and unhappy lives that formed the backbone of Communist rule inside Hungary, promoting terror, and fears of torture and execution into the Hungarian populace. Michener places a tremendous emphasis in his book on the heroism demonstrated by the patriots of Hungary that rebelled against the Soviets, fighting off tanks with Molotov cocktails, aging rifles, or their bare hands. Particularly alarming are his accounts of Communist Party members and working-class people, who were supposed to be the founders of communism, who raised arms and vengefully attacked and drove out the Soviets from their nation!

There are, however, problems with Michener's work; they are not a criticism of Michener's own integrity. First, the fact that his book appeared in 1957, a very short time following the uprising and in the midst of the Cold War, a bias is evident in his words; his work could very easily have been written to promote further dissent against international communism, as it undoubtedly did. Michener was a very popular sensationalist in his day. Then again, the Russians and Khrushchev have only themselves to blame for the condemnation they received, as it was the Russians who returned to Budapest and mercilessly shot people not even associated with the popular uprising.

Second, his book pays little, if any, attention to the crucial politics behind the uprising. As his book was written too soon following the event, this is to be expected. It is only following many years and indeed, the eventual collapse of communism in Europe that the full story could be told and revealed.

Third, a number of crucial events following 1945 took place in Hungary that eventually exploded into the popular uprising of October-November 1956. Michener does not detail these crucial events; hence his book provides inadequate and only sporadic background information of the uprising. For instance, he does not take care to detail how the Communist Party remained highly unpopular throughout Hungary following the Second World War, yet were imposed on the people through vote rigging and Russian backing, as well as through the AVO and terror. His work only provides details of the moral and social effects of the uprising on Hungarians. The book is an interesting and sometimes exciting read, though it is far from a complete look at this event, which was so soon forgotten outside Hungary.


Communism with an inhuman face   October 27, 2002
John Windsor (Eagan, Minnesota , USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

I read this book years ago, yet its theme and message still abide with me. Michener personalizes the plight of a whole nation under the iron grip of an alien ideology as brutal and merciless as it is stupid. As someone who has travelled extensively in Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe, I cannot but be saddened by the deliberate and systemic suppression and attempted annihilation during the last century of the rich variety of cultures that have grown and flourished in that part of the world.

Unfortunately, the 1956 Hungarian revolution took place only within the borders of modern Hungary, not within historic Hungary. Consequently, Michener's book does not address the hardships of ethnic Hungarians in bordering lands, such as Romania. Because the 1956 uprising happened on the borders of the Iron Curtain, however, it provided Michener a brief opening through which he could view the horrors of Marxist-Leninist "scientific socialism." The Bridge at Andau brings these horrors to life for those of us in the Free World.

"Nonfictional" accounts of historical events tend to describe them impersonally, largely as sequences of governmental actions. Michener's novel drives home the consequences of the Yalta conference for the ordinary people who later had to pay the price for those actions. I recommend this book highly to anyone who wants to understand the personal devastation wrought by utopian ideologies such as Marxism.