The Violinist

- Clare Galambos Winter, Holocaust Survivor
by Sarah Gaitanos
Victoria University Press - $40

Klara Galambos was a twenty-year-old violin student in Budapest in March 1944. Arrested and thrown into jail in the first days after the German occupation, she later managed to get home to Szombathely, was in the ghetto there and transported with the Jews of Szombathely to Auschwitz Birkenau. After five weeks she and her aunt were among the thousand Hungarian women selected for slave labour at Allendorf.
They returned to Hungary after the war, and in 1948 they both left Hungary for New Zealand, where Clare joined the fledgling national orchestra. As a long-serving member of the NZSO, she made a significant contribution to the musical life of this country, and is now retired in Wellington.

The Violinist draws on memoir, interviews and historical research to tell a compelling story.
I caught the tail end of a segment on TVOne's Good Morning (while riding the bike at the gym this morning !) where Kate de Goldi was talking about the book. Next Tuesday morning they are going to have Clare Galambos Winter in the studio.

About the author:
Sarah Gaitanos is the author of Nola Millar: A Theatrical Life, and with Alan Bollard, Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, of the current bestseller Crisis: One central bank governor and the global financial collapse.