Peter E VlckoBorn in 1912 in the mountainous Slovak village of Brehý, once part of Austro-Hungary, Peter Emilius Vlčko was a lieutenant colonel in the Czechoslovak Army serving in the Military Office of the President under Edvard Benes after the war. After gaduation from gymnázium in 1931, he attended military academy in Hranice, Czechoslovakia, where he was commissioned as first lieutenant of the cavalry in 1934. Higher equestrian school in Pardubice followed by War College in Bratislava after the outbreak of war concluded his formal military education.After Slovakia's declaration of independence and establishment of a Fascist government aligned with Nazi Germany in 1939, Peter Vlčko risked and devoted his life to opposing Nazi tyranny. Forced to serve on the bloody Russian Front in Operation Barbarossa, he was wounded in combat. At risk to his own life, he helped save dozens of Jews destined for deportation to extermination camps in Poland. Falling in love with a young Jewish woman, he secretly married her against his oath and the prevailing racist laws forbidding such relationships. During the Slovak National Uprising in autumn 1944, he served as field artillery officer and chief of staff to regional commanders. He was captured three times-twice by the Nazis and once by the Soviets-under the suspicion he was an enemy combatant or spy. Each time, Vlčko managed to either escape or persuade his captors of his innocence.After the war, Vlčko served the president of the newly restored Czechoslovak Republic in Prague. In preparation for the post of military attaché to Washington, D.C., he was assigned as Chief of the American Section of Military Intelligence. Near this time, Soviet influence in Czechoslovakia resulted in the February 1948 coup d'état. Facing relentless pressure to swear loyalty to Moscow, Vlčko saw no alternative other than escape to the West. With great difficulty, he later managed to bring his wife and two young sons out of Communist Czechoslovakia.The Vlčkos arrived in New York Harbor in November 1949 and began to build a life in the new, free world of their dreams. They settled in Michigan, where Peter became a testing design engineer for Ford Motor Company. Together with his wife Georgina, they raised four children. After more than thirty years working for Ford, Peter retired and dedicated his life to writing his memoirs and fighting the tyrannies of Communism and anti-Semitism. After peaceful division of Czechoslovakia in 1991, he was promoted to major general, in retirement, in the Slovak Army in 1994 by Slovakia's first Democratic president Michál Kovač. In 1998, he and his wife Georgina were granted Slovak citizenship. He peacefully died in his wife's arms in January 2004 at the age of 91-years. On 9 September 2004, the Slovak government facilitated a state funeral for Peter E. Vlčko with full military honors. Present at the funeral were political and military dignitaries from the United States and Europe. Peter E. Vlčko's legacy lives on in memoriam in national and Holocaust memorial museums throughout the world. Read More Read Less