Two Prayers to One God: A Journey Towards Identity and Belonging

(Paperback, Second Edition)

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Not just a journey through turbulent decades and across continents, this autobiography by George Szego a practising psychiatrist is also an enthralling exploration of the possibilities of self-analysis.

Szego paints a warm and vivid picture of youth that is fast obliterated when Nazi tanks invade Hungary in 1944. Szego drifts between analysis and cinematic narration even as he walks through hell itself, diving deeper and deeper into fantasy and memory as a means of survival.

Now in its second edition, Two Prayers to One God is more than a Holocaust book. It is a compelling look at the post-war years of rejuvenation in Budapest that were snatched away by Stalinist terror, and later, regained fleetingly with the Hungarian Revolution.

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.