Andor Hirsch

Summary

Orphan

Budapest, 1957 - shortly after the failed popular uprising against Soviet rule. Twelve-year-old Andor Hirsch has just returned to live with his mother after several years in an orphanage. She has carefully kept alive the memory of his father, whom Andor believes was murdered in the Holocaust. This imagined father figure gives him a sense of stability and direction in a world shaped by political repression and social uncertainty. That fragile balance is disrupted when a stranger appears, claiming to be Andor's biological father. Seeking closeness with the family, the man forces both mother and son to confront a past they have long suppressed. For Andor, this triggers an inner struggle between the idealized image of the father he thought he had lost and the unsettling reality of the man now asserting a claim over him.