BUDAPEST (JTA) – The award-winning Hungarian-born Italian writer and director Giorgio Pressburger, who wrote about Jewish life in Budapest before, during and after World War II, has died.
His death on October 5, at the age of 80, was made public at the Mittelfest culture festival in Cividale, in northern Italy, which he co-founded in 1991.
Pressburger was born in Budapest in 1937 and grew up in the poor 8th District Jewish quarter. He and his twin brother Nicola survived the Holocaust as children and both moved to Italy after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. The brothers authored the book “Homage to the Eighth District,” a collection of short stories drawn from their experiences in Budapest under Nazism and Stalinism, first published in 1986.
Pressburger, who lived for many years in Trieste, authored other books, as well as plays, and he directed for the stage, television, and cinema. From 1998 to 2002 he returned to Budapest as the director of the Italian Cultural Institute there.
