Born in Budapest right in the middle of the war, my earliest of memories were bombs falling on our heads. My father was captured as a war prisoner and spent 4 years in Siberia as his father had during world war I . “Yes my grandfather and father were both in the same “Gulag” in Norilsk Siberia. Captured on the same date except 30 years apart.”

In 1956, I escaped with my family from Hungary to Austria, by foot, during the Hungarian revolt against communism in order to escape the communist brutalities the Russians brought to my mother  country. With the assistance of The American Red Cross, we emigrated to the United States (arriving Christmas Eve 1956 to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey), settling finally in Los Angeles. I found Venice Beach and to me it looked like paradise.