Required readings
Since we will visit two cities and learn about two very different Jewish cultures and histories, we have chosen two short books for required reading for the 2025 Centropa Summer Academy: "A Guest in My Own Country: A Hungarian Life", by György (George) Konrad and "Götz and Meyer", by David Albahari.
To the extent that you can, we request you purchase from independent bookstores.
A Guest in My Own Country: A Hungarian Life, by György (George) Konrad.
Published as two separate books in Europe (Departure and Return in 2001, and Up on a Hill During a Solar Eclipse in 2003), this book won the National Jewish Book Award in memoir/autobiography in 2007.
The English language version contains both and is titled A Guest in my Own Country.
Departure and Return covers one year of his early life in Hungary (1944-1945, the time of Nazi occupation). Up on a Hill During a Solar Eclipse and the second are reflections on his life in Hungary for 50 years after the war.
We ask everyone to read the first, Departure and Return (for the Americans, that means you need to purchase A Guest in My Own Country and read Departure and Return. Of course, you're welcome to read Up on a Hill During a Solar Eclipse, as well.
You can read more about György Konrad in this obituary written in 2019 by Centropa's director, Edward Serotta.
Götz and Meyer, by David Albahari.
In this short (168 page) stream of consciousness work of fiction, a school teacher in Belgrade muses—and practically hallucinates—as he wonders just what the two SS men who drove the infamous gas van in Belgrade talked about all day.
The father and grandmother of Centropa interviewees, Matilda and Breda Kalef, were murdered in one of those vans. An unforgettable read.
