Woe to him who stands out from the crowd

How easy (and above all, convenient) it is to forget – and how unhealthy that is for the soul of a nation! This book, by the experienced non-fiction author Roman Cílek, takes us back in a captivating, narrative style to the post-February era, when lawlessness reigned. He pulls back the curtain of time and, through specific stories concerning the victims, primarily heroes of the preceding anti-fascist resistance and the war, he brings us closer to an era of show trials, targeted revenge, confessions obtained through torture, agents provocateurs, power-obsessed individuals, and malicious games played with human lives.

Roman Cílek has been dedicated to this topic for several decades. He has studied until-recently secret archives and met with dozens of witnesses both at home and abroad – whether victims or perpetrators of the post-February crimes (some of whom were later also consumed by this monstrous system) – and has acquired unique photographic material. Thanks to all this, he presents an authentic picture of an era whose return we must not allow, because in doing so we would betray ourselves and our ancestors.

And it is precisely in the authenticity and emphasis on human fates and motives (although some might be described as inhuman) that the main value of this book lies. By publishing it, we would like to pay a modest tribute to those who did not enter the service of communist evil and did not bow before it.