flâneur

Founders: #159 Andy Grove (Intel)

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What I learned from reading Swimming Across by Andrew S. Grove. ---- [0:01] I was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1936. By the time I was twenty, I had lived through a Hungarian Fascist dictatorship, German military occupation, the Nazis’ “Final Solution,” the siege of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army, a period of chaotic democracy in the years immediately after the war, a variety of repressive Communist regimes, and a popular uprising that was put down at gunpoint. [3:02] Some 200,000 Hungarians escaped to the West. I was one of them. [8:05] A subtle and compelling commentary on the power to endure. [10:03] He dedicates this book to his mom. He says: To my mother, who gave me the gift of life more than once. [13:03] People avoided looking at us. Even people whom we knew wouldn’t meet our eyes. It was as if a barrier was growing between us and everyone else. [14:01] My mother returned in a couple of hours, shaken up. She told me that the man who came for her was a policeman who arrested her along with the superintendent’s wife. Feeding Jewish people was against the law. The policeman told her that she should have bid me a more proper good-bye because she probably would not see me again

[00:00:00] I was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1936. By the time I was 20, I had lived through a Hungarian fascist dictatorship, German military occupation, the Nazis' final solution, the siege of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army, a period of chaotic democracy in the years immediately after the war, a variety of repressive communist regimes, and a popular uprising that was put down at gunpoint. [00:00:28] This is the story of that time and what happened to my family and me. Before I tell my story, it may be helpful to provide some historical context. When I was born, Hungary was governed by…

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