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Through the eyes of Rose
6:00 pm, Tuesday, March 31
Author John Kozak has written about his and his family’s experience
living in and escaping from communist Czechoslovakia when he was a
child. Through the Eyes of Rose is a great read and a wonderful program!
Once you begin the book, you will not be able to put it down and to
hear him speak about their life escaping Communism in Czechoslovakia is
chilling, entertaining and an event that should not be missed. Her
story is worth repeating over and over again, not to be forgotten
especially today with all that is going on in the Ukraine.
This is a story about love. About love of family and love of freedom.
It’s a story about the courage and determination of a mother who would
not give up, even when it appeared certain that failure seemed to be the
only reasonable ending to the scenario.
It is Rose Kozak’s story. The story of her struggle to feed her
family during the Nazi occupation of her native Czechoslovakia and her
brush with death by drowning in the Danube.
The Nazi oppression ended with the Allied defeat of the Germans. A
new nightmare shadowed Rose Kozak and her family. It came with the
Communist take over of Czechoslovakia.
When her husband, Anthony, was unable to return from Switzerland to
Prague where he faced prison or worse on charges fabricated by the new
Communist regime, Rose decided to escape.
With her two children, a 17-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old
son, she fled into the wilderness of the Bohemian Forest and headed for
the safety of the West German border. She was betrayed by a guide who
took money to help her, hunted by tracking dogs and nearly captured by a
Soviet patrol before stumbling into a small German town just across the
border.
When she saw a Jeep with U.S. Army markings parked outside a tavern,
she put her children in the Jeep and went to find the soldiers who were
driving it. She told them she was a United States citizen and demanded
that she be taken to their commanding officer. She soon learned that her
lifelong belief that she was an American citizen was misplaced. She was
not.
The family was sent to a refugee camp in Munich while efforts were
being made to reunite with her husband, a process that moved slowly
through the international bureaucracy.
Rose was 42 when she fled Czechoslovakia with her children in the
pre-dawn darkness of October 12, 1949. Three years later, January 21,
1952, she stepped off the Greyhound Bus that had brought her across the
Ambassador Bridge from Windsor, Ontario, Canada, to Detroit, Michigan,
into the arms of her aging father.
Rose Kozak’s ordeal was over. She was home.
“On Tuesday night we listened to author John Kozak from Grosse Pointe
Farms speak here at the Traverse Area District Library and we highly
recommend him! He wrote a wonderful tribute to his loving and
courageous mother, "Through the Eyes of Rose". Once you begin the book,
you will not be able to put it down and to hear him speak about their
life escaping Communism in Czechoslovakia is chilling, entertaining and
an event that should not be missed. Her story is worth repeating over
and over again, not to be forgotten especially today with all that is
going on in the Ukraine. Have I said we highly recommend him? We do!
It is worth repeating. Don't miss out, you will not be disappointed.”
From the Traverse Area District Library: Through the Eyes of Rose
details the story of Rose Kozak and how she successfully defied the
Czechoslovakian Communists in October 1949 and escaped with her children
through the wilderness of the Bohemian Forest to the freedom of West
Germany.
John Kozak was just seven when he escaped with his mother and older
sister from oppressive Communist rule. His emotional retelling of his
mother's struggle to feed her family during the Nazi occupation of
Czechoslovakia, her near drowning in the Danube River, and her reaction
to the news that the Czech Communists had fabricated criminal charges
against her husband all make for an intriguing look into the lives of a
family deeply affected by the Communist takeover of their native
country. When Rose's husband Anthony is unable to return from
Switzerland to Prague where he faces imprisonment due to fabricated
charges by the new Communist regime, Rose decides to escape. During her
journey to seek a better life, she is betrayed by a money-hungry guide,
hunted by tracking dogs, and nearly captured by a Soviet patrol.
Please join us as John Kozak shows us how one woman's courage and
dogged determination to seek freedom for her family proves that a
mother's love will always persevere over evil.
http://www.tadl.org/event/woodmere/2014/05/06/through-eyes-rose-mothers-flight-freedom-memory-mosaic
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