In the Shadow of Tyranny

Although personal stories of the Second World War are numerous, timeless stories such as this one are particularly poignant and apropos our present struggle over the tyranny of terrorism. Czechoslovakia during the dreadful years of the Second World War is the setting of this epic and harrowing Holocaust thriller, written by a retired Major General of the Slovak Army who personally witnessed and lived through the wartime events he writes about. The book's story covers a period from the time of Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland through the victory of the American, British, and Russian armies in Europe and the arrival of the Vlkos in New York Harbor. The book's central focus is how Democratic Czechoslovakia, a fledgling nation geographically caught between two tyrannical powers destined to face each other in battle and determined to dominate this small, yet historically strategic land, was repeatedly betrayed by her allies and left helplessly to herself. Against this thunderous backdrop of modern war, the author carefully interweaves the developing love affair and marriage of his two principal subjects, Peter Vlko and his beloved Jirka. Peter is an officer in the Slovak Army, a Christian, whose love for Jirka is complicated by the fact that she is a Jew predestined for deportation during Nazi control of Slovakia. The lovers and their closest friends, relatives, and associates live what amounts to an underground life for several years under persecution.

From the bloody Russian front to a military uprising in the Slovak mountains and a Communist putsch, the Vlkos live through two of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century. Their success in outwitting their overlords-first Nazis with their Fascist collaborators, and then the Communists-makes up the essential tension of their suspenseful and gripping story. Readers will follow the complex ins and outs of Czech, Slovak, and European politics, aggression, war, military occupation, insurrection, and the racist policies of extermination that exploded in Europe during the 1940's. As Slovakia is presently turning a new chapter in her rich history by denouncing her 50-year affair with Marxism and embracing Western Democracy, we find slowly emerging from the dusty dungeons of her memory a new and honest appraisal of the agonizing and shameful events she endured between 1938 and 1948. Peter Vlko plainly and truthfully presents the long-suppressed, poorly known, and often-misunderstood facts of this tumultuous decade in Czechoslovakia. He clings close to the viewpoints of his principal subjects as they try to keep life going under the most hopeless of circumstances. His style is calmly realistic in the midst of violence, chaos, and panic. He has an eye for the beauties of life even under conditions of wartime ugliness. And when the Vlkos finally reach the United States after years of suffering, the Statue of Liberty is a true symbol of freedom they long for.

<...