Dreaming Of Amerika: Fleeing From Communist Hungary, Childhood Dream Becomes A Reality

By Gabe G. Kubichek

Growing up in Depression-era Hungary, a young man dreams of escaping to America. He lives dangerously under a corrupt communist regime and takes part in the bloody revolution of 1956 before fulfilling... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1595262741
• ISBN13: 9781595262745
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Aeon Pub Inc
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Refreshing

If one listens only to the global news media, the bulk of the world demonstrates hatred for America, either via spiteful words or violent attacks. In DREAMING OF AMERIKA, we have the heartfelt testimony of a foreign-born national whose dream was to come to the U.S. and acquire citizenship, and did. Legally, too - what a concept! Author Gabe Kubichek was born in Hungary in 1933. His narrative begins with his formative years, during which his homeland was dominated by Nazi Germany, followed by life under communism after the Soviet occupation commencing in 1945. Gabe tells of his stint in the Hungarian Army, his participation in the short-lived revolution of October 1956, and his flight to Austria. Subsequently, he emigrated to Canada, where he lived for a period, gaining that country's citizenship, before finally entering the United States and, in 1970, becoming an American citizen just short of his 37th birthday. Finally, Gabe volunteered for civilian duty with the Department of Defense in South Vietnam, serving there intermittently from 1973 to the country's collapse in May 1975. DREAMING OF AMERIKA is far from perfect. First off, because the author finished writing it at age 70, I would have expected more of the wisdom and hindsight of one who could look back on his life with a self-deprecating humor, especially when remembering those past actions that were naive or downright foolish, such as the ill-conceived plan to personally ambush the mass of Russian tanks on their way to Budapest to crush the 1956 uprising. There's no such perspective, and the narrative is oddly matter-of-fact and charmless. Otherwise, the tone is that of a much younger man, and this leads to my second objection, which is Gabe's never-ending preoccupation with womanizing. Evidently, he was (and may still be) quite the stud with the young and old, married and single. I'm not prudish, mind you; it's just that his incessant obsession with sex, and his desire to tell the reader all about his many conquests on three continents, became tiresome and verged on the sophomoric. Perhaps Kubichek thought it might sell more books. I'm awarding DREAMING OF AMERIKA four stars simply because it's a refreshing story we don't hear often enough, i.e. that from someone who revered the United States - perhaps more than native-born residents - from early on, and who moved heaven and earth to get here, arriving in North America with no knowledge of English and very little in the way of job prospects. Yet, playing by the immigration rules flagrantly scoffed at by so many nowadays, he ultimately became a professionally skilled, tax-paying citizen living his dream. Honor is due, and the country is richer for having him aboard. (Note: The edition of the book read and reviewed was a pre-publication, uncorrected proof.)

A Brave, Sincere, Warmly Inspirational Statement of Pride

DREAMING OF AMERIKA is a book each of us needs to read just about now, when our view of the country is at twists and turns as we reenact the Vietnam blunder in Iraq and find ourselves embarrassed by the way the world outside is viewing us. Times such as these challenge those 'feel good moments' that usually surface on July 4th during a fireworks display and the music of Aaron Copeland and the poetry of Walt Whitman. Gabe G. Kubichek has the gift to alter present perceptions. Kubichek's messages are many, but his apparent reason for writing this memoir is to tell us exactly what happened during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a terrifying moment in history in which he was in the center of the horror and managed to escape his native Hungary to flee with the thousands of refugees to the land of freedom - America. As background to this expose, Kubichek returns to his childhood and the dreams of American cowboys and Indians courtesy of the movies. His story progresses through the Communist domination of Hungary after WW II, his service in the military, his convictions that Communism was simply not the answer to Hungary's poverty and political unrest with his subsequent imprisonment for his beliefs, and his eventual presence in the massacre of Hungarians during the infamous revolt of 1956. Kubichek escaped first to Canada, then to the US and even volunteered as a citizen to spend time in Vietnam teaching helicopter mechanics to the Vietnamese. Throughout all of his life to the time of this writing at age 70, he is driven by his love for the Freedom in America, a right he sees us, as people who have never lived nder a dictatorship, as taking for granted. Kubichek writes simply yet eloquently, not depending on grand prose to relate his convictions as illustrated by his memoirs, but electing to share his life as though he were writing us a personal letter about his past. If he spends a bit too much time on his sexual conquests or his obsession with women, this only enhances his reality as a man at once simple in his drives, yet heroic in his life choices. This is a book that is well worth the attention of our weary state in America today. It is warming to read the thoughts of a man who has kept his eye on our much taken for granted rainbow of freedom.