By — Larisa Epatko Larisa Epatko Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/author-kati-marton-describes-her-familys-ordeal Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Author Kati Marton Describes Her Family’s Ordeal World Dec 30, 2009 10:30 AM EDT When author Kati Marton started digging into the files that the Hungarian secret police kept on her parents, who worked as journalists in Cold War Budapest, she discovered the extent to which the people around them in the 1940s and ’50s kept tabs on her family’s everyday life. Their grocer, dentist, even their babysitter were working with the secret police. In “Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America,” Marton describes what happened when her father – and later her mother – were arrested and eventually released, and how desperate her father had become while imprisoned: “My father when he was already in prison wrote on cigarette paper, a letter that he tried to smuggle out to my mother, pleading with her to divorce him, to marry someone at the American Embassy, a security guard, anybody, just to get a ticket out of Hungary. And to make sure that his children, myself and my older sister, forget him, because he will never get out,” she said in an interview with Margaret Warner. The NewsHour plans to air the full conversation tonight, and you can watch an additional online-only excerpt here: We're not going anywhere. Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on! Donate now By — Larisa Epatko Larisa Epatko Larisa Epatko produced multimedia web features and broadcast reports with a focus on foreign affairs for the PBS NewsHour. She has reported in places such as Jordan, Pakistan, Iraq, Haiti, Sudan, Western Sahara, Guantanamo Bay, China, Vietnam, South Korea, Turkey, Germany and Ireland. @NewsHourWorld
When author Kati Marton started digging into the files that the Hungarian secret police kept on her parents, who worked as journalists in Cold War Budapest, she discovered the extent to which the people around them in the 1940s and ’50s kept tabs on her family’s everyday life. Their grocer, dentist, even their babysitter were working with the secret police. In “Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America,” Marton describes what happened when her father – and later her mother – were arrested and eventually released, and how desperate her father had become while imprisoned: “My father when he was already in prison wrote on cigarette paper, a letter that he tried to smuggle out to my mother, pleading with her to divorce him, to marry someone at the American Embassy, a security guard, anybody, just to get a ticket out of Hungary. And to make sure that his children, myself and my older sister, forget him, because he will never get out,” she said in an interview with Margaret Warner. The NewsHour plans to air the full conversation tonight, and you can watch an additional online-only excerpt here: We're not going anywhere. Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on! Donate now