The Traveler

In 1945, near the end of World War II, Antal Szerb, the author of The Traveler, was executed along with 2000 other Hungarian Jews during a forced march westward. Three years later the New York Jewish Refugee Aid Society erected a memorial in the Hungarian town of Balf where the executions had taken place. Part of the memorial is an open book, engraved in stone, bearing the following Antal Szerb quote: "Freedom is the concern not only of one nation but of all mankind." In 1995, on the 50th anniversary date of Szerb's execution, Peter Hargitai, The Traveler's American translator, and his students at Florida International University had the name of Antal Szerb inscribed into the memorial wall of the Holocaust Memorial in the city of Miami Beach.