Swimming across : a memoir / Andrew S. Grove.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grove, Andrew S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grove, Andrew S.

Intel Corporation.

Electronics engineers--United States--Biography.

Electronics engineers.

Executives--United States--Biography.

Executives.

Holocaust survivors.

United States.

Hungary.

Holocaust survivors--Hungary--Biography.

Semiconductors.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

viii, 290 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Warner Books, [2001]

Summary:

Set in the cruel years of Hungary's Nazi occupation and subsequent Communist regime, Swimming Across is the stunning childhood memoir of one of the leading thinkers of our time, the legendary Intel chairman. The story of Andris Grof -- later to become Andy Grove -- begins in the 1930s, on the banks of the Danube. Here, in Budapest, young Andris lives a middle-class existence with his secular Jewish parents. But he and his family will be faced with a host of staggering obstacles. After Andris nearly loses his life to scarlet fever at the age of four, his family is forced to deal with the Nazi occupation of Hungary. Fleeing the Germans, Andris and his mother find refuge with a Christian family in the outskirts of Budapest and then hide in cellars from Russian bombs. After the nightmare of war ends, the family rebuilds its business and its life, only to face a new trial with a succession of repressive Communist governments.

In June 1956, the popular Hungarian uprising is put down at gunpoint. Soviet troops occupy Budapest and randomly round up young people. Two hundred thousand Hungarians follow a tortuous route to escape to the West. Among them is the author... Combining a child's sense of wonder with an engineer's passion for detail, Grove re-creates a Europe that has since disappeared. From the Nazis' youthful victims innocently exulting in a "put the Jews in the ghetto" game...to a May Day march through Budapest under the blaring strains of prerecorded cheers...to the almost surreal scenes of young escapees securing the help of a hunchbacked peasant and his fantastically beautiful, colorfully costumed wife, he paints a vivid and suspenseful, personal and cultural portrait. Within these pages an authentic American hero reveals his origins in a very different place during a very different time. He explores the ways in which persecution and struggle, as well as kinship and courage, shaped his life. It is a story of survival -- and triumph.

Contents:

1 My Third Birthday 5

2 Scarlet Fever 13

3 The War Arrives 23

4 Life Gets Strange 35

5 Christmas in Kobanya 51

6 After the War 65

7 Gymnasium 91

8 Dob Street School 111

9 Madach Gymnasium 133

10 Fourth Year 165

11 University

First Year 189

12 Revolution 211

13 Crossing the Border 225

14 Aboard Ship 247

15 New York City 259.

ISBN:

0446528595

OCLC:

45951561