The remarkable story of my mother, the heroine of the Holocaust

I’ve always loathed Russia: its regime, its remnants of enduring Stalin-worship, its rulers’ century of malign influence on the world. The cold-blooded autocrat Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine is all too redolent of the USSR, is succeeding in his aim of shattering the security and stability of Europe. I watch clips of Putin addressing vast cheering crowds in Moscow and wonder: what’s wrong with these otherwise sophisticated people? The alternative narratives are mere clicks away on their smartphones, yet they choose to swallow Putin’s dangerous lies and propaganda. Have they learnt nothing from their own history?

My Russia-phobia is nothing new: when I was four years old, my family fled Hungary in the aftermath of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. This popular uprising against communist repression had been brutally crushed by Soviet tanks: civilians were massacred, thousands imprisoned, the revolution’s leaders hanged.