Beatrice Simonsen’s review  for  “Buchkultur” February/March 2012
(Translated by Emmerich Koller)

. . . truthfulness characterizes the “Memoirs of an Immigrant from Hungary”. The home village of Emmerich Koller, born in 1942, was located in Hungary but the majority of the villagers spoke German. The first childhood memories are of a time marked by privation: The end of World War II, Russian occupation followed by the communist era.

Emmerich Koller describes a village life, shaped by poverty, religion, and big families, with a sense of justice that pervades his entire narration. In 1956, the family takes advantage of the Hungarian revolution and escapes across the border and after four years as refugees in Austria immigrates to America. In the meantime, Emmerich begins training as a mechanic but then, to everyone’s surprise, he follows a call to the priesthood. With determination and hard work, he dedicates himself to his studies and the boy of simple Hianzish parents becomes and educated young man. Lack of money continues to be the most pressing problem for the refugees but as Koller says, “The indomitable spirit of the American character can in great part be traced back to the determination of all such immigrants.”

One is reminded of the Irish-American author Frank McCourt whose autobiography became a bestseller. In Koller’s book too, the sense of privation in an impoverished Land becomes uncomfortably realistic – the promise of America redeeming. The Koller family’s strict religious outlook compels the author to write to the best of his knowledge and conscience. Looking back to the past with a loving but detached perspective, he does not misrepresent the “poor but beautiful” childhood nor does he pass over “wrong” decisions, which become apparent only in the course of time. The general validity that emerges in this wise narration can be transferred to immigration at all times and places.