From a royal wedding in 1810 to the world’s largest beer festival, Oktoberfest has grown into far more than a celebration of beer. It is a temporary city, a living Bavarian tradition and an experience that transforms Munich every autumn. Having watched the Wiesn rise from an empty field outside my office window, I discovered its history, rituals and the unmistakable magic behind the words: “O’zapft is!”
Judit Szilos-Zongor has been living in Munich for three years. Inspired in part by the story of her Danube Swabian ancestors, she explores what it means to find a sense of home in a country to which her family’s history reconnects nearly three hundred years later.
A mother’s personal testimony about how political rhetoric can become everyday fear — and why changing laws is not enough if the wounds within society remain.
Life in My Chosen Home. There are decisions in life that, even at the moment we make them, we know will not simply open a new chapter, but will cast everything that came before in a different light. For me, moving to the United Kingdom with my family was one of those decisions.
As a 65-year-old grandmother who has lived in England for seventeen years, it is difficult to summarise briefly why I left Hungary. It was not one single reason that led me to move abroad, but a series of events that gradually built on one another until they made my life, and my family’s everyday life, impossible.
Hungary’s stricter family reunification rules raise difficult questions for Hungarian citizens living abroad with non-EU spouses and families
Sixteen years ago, I left Hungary for New Zealand, partly to get as far away as possible from what I already saw unfolding at home. To my surprise, I felt at home almost from the first moment. New Zealand became my chosen country: a place where everyday kindness, public dignity and community solidarity made life feel livable. Yet Hungary remained painfully present through my family, friends and the news I followed from afar.
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