And the Rest is Yours: A Story of Love, Loss and Resilience

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His ninetieth year just behind him, former psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor George Szego reflects on the mysteries of grief, loss and desire.

Sentenced to life by the Nazis at the age of sixteen, AuschwitzBirkenau survivor George would go on to marry his childhood sweetheart, a fellow Hungarian Jew and eventually a fellow doctor; see cancer take the love of his life some seventy years later; then finally re-partner, in his eighties, with all the innocence and wonderment of a teenager. With the clock ticking, Szego is haunted by the horrors of his past; is repeatedly recharged by the gifts of the present; and is, all the while, philosophical about lifes apparent contradictions and the inexorable march of time.

Part social autobiography, part deconstruction of accepted attitudes to ageing, part romantic memoir, this powerful book is both heartrending and heart-warming.

Author Bio

Former psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor and author George Szego, spent a happy childhood in the village of Mezoberny, on the Great Hungarian Plain, where his father was a doctor. His parents converted from Judaism to Catholicism to protect the family from growing anti-Semitism. But within days of the Nazis invading Hungary in March 1944, George was interned in the Jewish ghetto. Three months later he was deported to Auschwitz his grandmother was gassed to death on arrival, his mother also perished in the war. George was then transported to a concentration camp in Bavaria until liberation by the US army nearly a year later. He returned to Hungary to find his father alive.

In the post-war years, George studied medicine in Budapest and married Eva, who would also become a doctor. They fled Hungary for Israel in the aftermath of the 1956 Hungarian revolution, and two years later emigrated to Australia. After a bleak period, during which George found himself cleaning toilets at a Melbourne hospital, he and Eva passed the exams enabling foreign-qualified doctors to practise in Australia. Together, they opened a surgery in Elwood. He later specialised in psychiatry. He has a PhD in neuropathology and is a member and fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. In 2013 Eva died of cancer. In his mid 80s George found love again with a long-time friend, Kati. His experience of loss and renewal, trauma and memory is the subject of his book, And The Rest is Yours.

His writings have been published in The Australian Jewish News and The Age. His acclaimed memoir, Two Prayers to One God, was first published in 2001 by Hardie Grant Books.