I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Rita Cosby when she spoke of the story that is documented in her book, Quiet Hero. She’s also autographed my book. This however did not influence in any way my opinion on this book. If I had to choose one of my most favorite books. This would be it. Rita tells the story of uncovering her father’s past in which it is revealed that he was an underground fighter during Nazi occupation. He was injured after a mortar attack and then taken into custody at a POW camp, in which he later escaped from. He escaped just in time because those that did not escape were later killed or put into work camps by communist Russia.

My favorite quote from the book:

The scene is after his group had escaped from the POW camp. A plane flies low and drops something out of the plane. The group thinks its a grenade and dives to the ground to take cover. When no explosion occurs, they realize what it was:

“We all stood up and dusted ourselves off, trying to make out what it was that had been tossed out of the plane.

“What was it?” I ask.

He smiles. “It was a chocolate bar,” he says. A chocolate bar with a note tied to it with red ribbon. The sergeant untied the ribbon and opened the note, but the whole thing was written in English. It had been an American plane! ‘Quickly,’ the sergeant shouted to us as we gathered around him, ‘I need someone who can read English.’ Stalag IV B [The Nazi POW camp] had its fair share of American and British prisoners of war, and a few of us had picked up some English. One of the Poles came forward and read the note…

It said ‘Welcome. You are safe to walk now during daytime. There are no troops between you and our lines. You have fifteen miles to walk and you’re free.’”

I loved this book and I consider it a must read.