Vlado Herzog's Two Wars

WINNER OF THE 2013 JABUTI AWARD - Book of the Year (Non-Fiction) Audálio Dantas, author and one of the protagonists of *The Two Wars of Vlado Herzog*, draws on his own memories, along with readings, testimonies, and rigorous investigation of the context in which Vlado's death occurred to reconstruct the truth of the facts behind the dramatic episode. "Over the years, I followed practically everything written about it in newspapers, magazines, books, and academic theses. Reading countless texts led me to the conclusion that I had a debt to pay. In many cases, it was necessary to try to restore the truth of the facts, fill in gaps in information, point out untruths and even intentional omissions. Writing this book became, for me, an irrefutable task," says Dantas. The author also recounts the courageous role played by the São Paulo Journalists' Union in exposing a murder committed within a state apparatus. "This book is an attempt to reconstruct a dark time. Focusing on the tumultuous days of October 1975, when the fury of agents from the darkest side of the military dictatorship struck a deep blow to the profession of journalists, it presents the events from the perspective of someone who lived them intensely. I, for example, have no doubt that those were the most agonizing days of my life," he states. The starting point is the saga of the small Herzog family, desperately fleeing Yugoslavia for Italy during the horrors of World War II. They were fleeing the war that was tearing Europe apart and the Nazi persecution of the Jews. What remained of the family was left behind, most of them murdered in concentration camps. To survive, the Jewish boy Vlado Herzog learned painful lessons of escape. He was living through his first war. He would experience his second in Brazil, a country he arrived in at age 9. The peace he and his parents believed they had found here ended one day in the darkness of a torture chamber. "In writing this book, I didn't intend to exhaust the subject, but rather to add new information and shed a little more light on what can be considered one of the most important chapters in Brazil's recent history," concludes Dantas.