Uprchlíci – Clemmensen Jesper (2021)

On Sunday, June 24, 1960, Jan Roček jumped with his wife, mother-in-law, and two small sons from the deck of an East German excursion boat into the waters of the port in Gedser, Denmark. The next day, their good friends repeated the same feat. After long years of Nazi and then communist oppression, two Jewish families from Eastern Europe finally reached freedom. The book Refugees is an incredible story of people who passed through Terezín and witnessed the Nazi atrocities committed in the extermination camp at Auschwitz. After the war, they remained trapped behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia under the rule of communist overlords, until they finally escaped to the free world through East Germany. Refugees embody the history of the 20th century, and the story of these people is valuable primarily because it shows us how an unbreakable desire for human dignity managed to overcome the ravages of two totalitarian regimes, their own fears, and after many hardships, find a path to freedom. The book was created based on interviews with witnesses – including Jan Roček, who lives in the United States – and research primarily in Danish, East German, and Czechoslovak archives.