Revenge and Revolution

Marika Junger is a fourteen-year old Hungarian Jewish girl who, at age nine, escaped the Budapest ghetto with her mother and went into hiding in a small mountain refuge. At the end of WWII, they return to Budapest to a Hungary "liberated" by Stalin's Soviet Army. She learns that part of her family were denounced and perished in Auschwitz. Others, who were hiding in Budapest, were denounced by a neighbor, lined up along the banks of The Danube and murdered by the Nazi-allied Arrowcross. Since the Soviet-imposed Communist system also relied heavily on denunciation, she cleverly and dangerously uses these tyrannical practices to denounce and avenge those responsible for the horrific deaths of her loved ones. She becomes part of a circle of young intellectuals who are the core instigators of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet occupation.

Marika Junger is a fourteen-year old Hungarian Jewish girl who, at age nine, escaped the Budapest ghetto with her mother and went into hiding in a small mountain refuge. At the end of WWII, they return to Budapest to a Hungary "liberated" by Stalin's Soviet Army. She learns that part of her family were denounced and perished in Auschwitz. Through a chance encounter with a former neighbor, Marika learns that her family in hiding in Budapest, had been denounced by a neighbor covetous of their apartment. Marika's family were seized, lined up along the banks of The Danube and murdered by the Nazi-allied Arrowcross. This new knowledge, combined with her anger and pain over the loss of her family in the camps, provokes a behavioral transformation in Marika. A beautiful, popular, academically-gifted student, Marika shifts her focus from music and the arts to pursuits which will assist her mission to avenge her loved ones. She meets with a judge who informs her that anti-semitism is still alive and well in Communist Hungary. Since the Soviet-imposed Communist system also relies heavily on denunciation, she decides to use these tyrannical practices to denounce and avenge those responsible for the horrific deaths of her loved ones. She realizes the only way to succeed is to denounce them for being "anti-Communist. She joins the Communist Youth Organization and becomes its president so that she will meet people with power in the party and be more credible as an informer. She accepts the romantic advances of a young officer from the secret police to help her proceed with her plan to denounce the woman who sent her family to their deaths along The Danube. To avenge the person who sent her family to Auschwitz, Marika needs to penetrate more deeply into the system. Through her "boyfriend" she is introduced to a high-ranking officer in the AVO (equivalent to The Soviet KGB) who gets her a job in The AVO. From this position, she is able to discover the person who had betrayed her family who were sent to Auschwitz instead of Switzerland. Her denunciation places him on trial where he is found guilty. Having avenged her family, she meets and falls in love with a young man who is part of a circle of young intellectuals who are the core instigators of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against the Soviet occupation. The revolution is unsuccessful, her young lover commits suicide, and Marika and her mother escape to free Europe.

Maria J. Coleman was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1935. She escaped Soviet-occupied Hungary in 1956, earned a singing degree from the Verdi Conservatory in Milan, Italy, then emigrated to The United States. She has a Masters' degree in Anthropology and a PhD degree in Psychology. Maria worked as a psychotherapist in Italy and the United States. She is an accomplished painter and had an extended ceramic exhibit, "A Child Survivor's Legacy" at The El Paso Holocaust Museum. Maria has two children and four grandchildren. She lives with her spouse in Encinitas, CA.