This epic family drama which continues to this day centres around two Hungarian brothers, one a Fascist and the other a Communist, who both became ministers before and after the defeat of Hitler and took turns to go against their convictions to save each other’s life. Endre Rajk was in Hungary’s pro-Nazi wartime government and eventually died in exile in Germany. Laszlo Rajk was a Communist minister in the government that took over after World War Two. He was executed in Hungary’s most famous Stalinist show trial in 1949. Born into a family of eight brothers and three sisters in the 1900s Transylvania, then part of Hungary, both brothers left for Budapest in the 1920s after Transylvania was given to Romania in the Versailles carve-up of Europe after World War One. Laszlo became a Marxist, was thrown out of the university and forced to become a construction worker. He went to prison for a year organising a strike and then fought in the Spanish Civil War. Endre rose to the top of a food supply chain and was the most financially secure of the brothers. Laszlo spent World War Two organising the Hungarian Resistance while Endre became a minister in the Fascist government which was trying to eliminate them. In 1944, Laszlo was arrested and put on trial, with the death penalty an almost certain result. Under pressure from the family, Endre appealed to pro-Nazi leader Ferenc Szalasi for clemency. Consequently, the trial was transferred to a civil court but as the Soviet Army was already walking on Budapest, there was no time to hold it. Endre had therefore saved Laszlo’s life. After the war Endre ended up in a camp in West Germany. All Axis’ politicians were automatically returned to their countries of origin, which for Endre would have meant an instant execution. By now Laszlo Rajk was interior minister in Hungary’s new Communist-led government and deleted Endre’s name from the repatriation lists. In a complete role reversal, Laszlo thus saved Endre’s life! By 1949, the popular and charismatic Rajk was seen as a threat by Hungary’s ruthless Stalinist leader Matyas Rakosi. In June, four months after Rajk’s new wife Julia gave birth to their first child, Rajk was arrested on trumped up charges of spying. After months of interrogation, Rajk confessed publicly and was executed. Julia was imprisoned and baby Laszlo jnr was given a new name and put in an orphanage. Four years later Julia was released from prison, reclaimed her son, and bravely campaigned for a reburial of her husband with full honours. At least 100,000 people attended the funeral on October 6. The event passed off peacefully but it emboldened the population and on October 23, the 1956 Hungarian Uprising erupted. Julia, a close friend of the revolution’s leader Imre Nagy, and young Laszlo were at the heart of events and after the Soviet tanks crushed the rebellion, Julia and Laszlo were exiled in Romania with Nagy and the latter was executed in 1958. Rajk, a leading dissident in the 1970s and 80s, was a physical reminder to Hungary's leaders for the next 33 years of the injustices perpetrated in the name of Communism. After the first free elections in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Rajk was elected to walk the same corridors of power as his father.