Kriegel by Martin Groman

One of my favorite podcasts is prepiste dejiny (Rewrite the Past), which started as a commentary on historical parallels made by politicians and evolved into a podcast covering the last 200 years, particaluary in the context of Czech Republic region. One of the historians who hosts the podcast wrote a book about Frantisek Kriegel. Kriegel was a doctor and a communist who served as a war doctor in the Spanish Civil War and then in China. After returning home, he helped shape the Cuban health system. Ultimately, after refusing to sign the Moscow Declaration (which is also somewhat of a myth), he was expelled from the party and eventually signed the Charta 77. As you can see, his life can be compared to Forrest Gump’s, but Griegel’s life happened. The book itself was well-researched and showed the life of a man who truly believed in a better world. It highlights the differences between his values, his faith in communism, and reality. The last part of the book, after the occupation in ‘68, was also really interesting. It showed Criegel on the opposite side of the system and his realization that the reality was not what he thought he was building.