The Last Days of Budapest: spies, Nazis, rescuers, and resistance, 1940-1945

REVIEW JONATHAN EATON In reading about the Second World War, it is easy to lose sight of the brutal realities of the conflict, whether revealed through acts of unfathomable evil or deeds of immense personal courage. In The Last Days of Budapest, Adam LeBor painstakingly recreates the war experience through the lens of a single city and its inhabitants. The role of Hungary in the Second World War was prefaced by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. This agreement reset the borders of post-World War I Europe and resulted in the loss of almost two-thirds of the country’s territory and around 3.3 million Hungarian citizens. There was also a substantial reduction in military power. The sense