Born in Budapest in 1933, I grew up as an only child shaped deeply by my mother, my family and a country already undergoing enormous change.

As Hungary became a Communist country, I came of age during years of repression that gradually began to loosen by the time I entered my final years at the Technical University.

What appeared to be a student gathering at Bem Square became one of the first moments in a movement that would soon transform Budapest.

What began as an ordinary evening playing cards with friends ended with me standing among thousands of Hungarians gathered at Parliament demanding change.

For several extraordinary days, Hungarians believed change might be possible even though no one could say with certainty what kind of country would emerge.

When Soviet tanks and cannons returned on November 4, the possibility that the revolt might succeed quickly disappeared.

At twenty-three, four months from completing my degree and deeply in love, I made the decision that would determine the direction of the rest of my life.

George and I began our escape using whatever transportation, documents, supplies and improvisation we could find along the way.

After being captured near the border, George and I escaped a second time by jumping from a moving truck carrying prisoners back toward Gyor.

With snow on the ground, a machine-gun-carrying border guard ahead and an Express train approaching behind us, George and I made our final run out of Hungary.

Crossing the border gave me freedom, but at twenty-three years old I suddenly had to decide where in the world I belonged.

Arriving in North America with little English and no clear plan, I found work, saved money and began deciding what my new life might become.

The education I thought I had abandoned in Budapest continued in America, eventually leading to advanced degrees from M.I.T. and Boston University.

Nearly two decades after escaping Hungary, I finally returned to the country I had left behind and began reconnecting with the people and memories of my youth.

First through an oral history in 1976 and again fifty years after the revolt in 2006, I began looking back at how one decision made at twenty-three shaped generations of my family.