The fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian uprising of 1956 saw the emergence of a wave of new monographs on this topic. Charles Gati's Failed Illusions (Stanford, 2006) and Paul Lendvai's One Day That Shook the Communist World (Princeton, 2008) were particularly worthwhile reading (see their AHY reviews in 2008 and 2009). Likewise, several studies on Austria and Hungary were published on that occasion. Notably, the sixteen contributions in the volume Die ungarische Revolution und Österreich 1956, edited by Ibolya Murber and Zoltán Fónagy, brought new insights to topics like Austria's role during and after the revolution, humanitarian aid, and the refugee question. Erwin Schmidl, Wolfgang Etschmann, and Tamara Scheer published An der Grenze (Graz, 2006), a remarkable case study that deals with the role of the Austrian border and the Austrian army (Bundesheer) in the 1956 events. The two books under review here complement this array of topics in different ways.

Andreas Gémes's study, Austria and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution: Between Solidarity and Neutrality, was published in 2008 and therefore builds on the literature mentioned above. The subtitle of the book indicates its two major themes. Gémes's starting point is the collective Austrian memory, which is identical to the official narrative of Austria's role in 1956. It holds that 1956 was a test case for the new foreign policy doctrine of neutrality and that Austria performed brilliantly in this matter. Second, a wave of solidarity with Hungary swept through Austria. The country generously accepted the nearly 200,000 Hungarian refugees and hence proved to be a “humanitarian superpower.” When commemorating the events of 1956 fifty years later, state ceremonies in Austria and also in Hungary continued to build on these two well-established stories of Austrian neutrality and solidarity.

In reality, matters were more complicated. Austria performed a continuous “balancing act between solidarity for the Hungarian people and neutrality” (4), states Gémes. Solidarity with Hungarian refugees earned Austria its credentials in the Western world. However, neutral Austria had to deal with the refugee issue cautiously vis-à-vis the Communist bloc. Austria interpreted the Geneva Convention on Refugees generously and soon had to cope with refugee numbers that were well beyond its capacity. The challenging “balancing act” meant accepting much needed humanitarian aid from abroad while also being careful enough not to step into a line of fire of Communist propaganda that bluntly claimed Austria was constantly violating the neutrality principle.

Official Austria was diligent enough to stress cooperation with international and neutral actors, for example the UNHCR, the Red Cross, and various—in particular, Scandinavian and Swiss—aid organizations. On the issue of repatriation, postrevolutionary Kádár Hungary wanted to handle the repatriation of refugees “in a bilateral manner,” whereas “Austrians strove to internationalize it by involving the UN High Commissioner [for Refugees]” (82). Still, accusations coming from the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, but also internally from the Communist daily Volksstimme, continued to portray Austria and some refugee camps as the center of “counterrevolutionary” insurgency and weaponry, the site of agitation of CIA agents and Radio Free Europe, and a safe haven for Hungarian Fascists, groups that prevented ordinary Hungarian refugees from returning to their home country. Gémes reveals that most of these last accusations served to give more legitimacy to Kádár's “old-orthodox” Communist regime in Hungary.

An important element that Gémes recognizes in his study is the “solidarity fatigue” that started in Austria as early as December 1956. Because of the sheer number of refugees, Austria swayed between order and chaos; and in the initial weeks and months, all the “Golden West” had on offer were “primitive camps” (72). To be fair, some of this had to do with the fact that many refugees had difficulties moving on to their preferred destination as a result of immigration quotas, conditions concerning age or sex, and extensive medical examinations. The refugee issue soon improved, particularly after the United States tripled its immigration quota to 21,500 (75–81).

On the issue of Austria's neutrality and 1956, Gémes mainly builds on Manfried Rauchensteiner's Spätherbst 1956. Die Neutralität auf dem Prüfstand (Vienna, 1981). Gémes deals with Austria's concept of neutrality lucidly. He credibly elaborates on competing Western and Eastern interpretations of neutrality, with close attention paid to Imre Nagy's concept of neutrality in the 1950s. The reform Communist Nagy was a firm believer in a national path toward Socialism. In the international context, Nagy found his vision best represented in the 1955 Bandung Declaration, in which Yugoslavia, but also Nehru's India, Nasser's Egypt, and Indonesia played leading roles. Only pressure from the street brought the Western (Austrian) type of neutrality into Hungarian revolutionary politics in late October and early November 1956.

The second book under review is Edda Engelke's “Einem besseren Leben entgegen?”: Ungarische Flüchtlinge 1956 in der Steiermark. Engelke's monograph—like Gémes's work originally a doctoral dissertation—is a detailed case study on Hungarian refugees in Styria. She argues that the story of Hungarian refugees started well before 1956 and gives evidence of great dissatisfaction in the rural southwest of the country in the early and mid 1950s. Landowners opposed Rákosi's tough collectivization policy and subsequent persecution and decided to flee the country. Following the collapse of the Hungarian uprising, Austria's government and the governors of the federal states agreed that Styria would take over 6,000 refugees. For a short period, the actual number of refugees was double that. By the end of 1957, the largest refugee camps were closed. Engelke's study gives ample evidence that Austria and Styria pursued a policy of assimilation and integration. There was an effort to distribute refugees to many small camps all over Styria and to organize housing according to their needs, particularly in the case of families with many children. In nearly all cases, this coincided with school enrollment for children and work for the breadwinner of the family (127–144). By then, such refugees had already begun something like a normal life and were subsequently obliged to contribute to housing costs.

The fundamental elements of this book are the primary sources that Engelke examines for the first time. These are lengthy police interviews with refugees, which were carried out by the security department of Styrian police. The reports surfaced only in 2002. Until then they were stored in the subterranean tunnels of the castle hill of Graz. Einem besseren Leben entgegen is hence a highly readable book, particularly because the stories of Hungarian refugees give the reader a feeling of immediate participation in their lives. To be sure, Engelke is aware that personal memories recounted by refugees to police officers in the host country may be structured to conform to what the authorities wanted to hear (19–25). In most cases, however, the refugees' stories do impress the reader through their sincerity and frankness.

One of these “thick descriptions”—to use the famous term of anthropologist Clifford Geertz—is of particular interest. In chapter 11, which deals with child and teenage refugees, Engelke recounts some eighty stories of teenagers, all of whom made the deliberate decision to flee their country. In some tragic cases, their fathers and brothers had died in street fighting in Budapest, whereas others had relatives in the West, and therefore the youths made the decision to leave the country. In most cases, however, the reason to go was not political, but rather related to tensions between the youths and their families and communities: an unbearable stepmother, discrimination in school, and poverty in the countryside. Einem besseren Leben entgegen recounts the teenagers' stories in Austria dealing with “real life” issues like discipline, escape, and pregnancy, as well as schooling and humanitarian aid. Austrian and Styrian bureaucracies were aware of the need to deal with those under age with the highest sensitivity, and often consulted international aid organizations which assisted in decision making. A last “thick description” in Engelke's monograph deals with spies and perceived spies in refugee camps (194–209).

On this issue the two books under review complement each other brilliantly. Engelke's Einem besseren Leben entgegen gives evidence on the ground in Styria of what Gémes calls “the Propaganda Campaign against Austria” and examines on the international level in Austria and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.