"The Accidental Hero" | An Author Event with Pat Dewane

Like a buried treasure, Lieutenant Colonel Matt Konop’s unread WWII manuscript sat undisturbed in a Two Rivers basement for 23 years. In 2007, his grandson, Pat Dewane, turned it into a one-man show that has caused a sensation across the United States. On the last week of WWII, Konop freed the same Czech towns and villages his grandparents had left for rural Kewaunee County in the 1860s. This remarkable coincidence caused the Czechs to parade him around town as their “liberator,” an American officer who spoke their dialect, looked like them, and had a local surname. Konop would never be the same, as the truth of his Bohemian identity was revealed in the middle of America’s great moment on the world stage. Dewane will read from his book, The Accidental Hero, in Manitowoc Public Library’s Balkansky Community Room at 6 PM on Thursday, April 17. Pat will recount his grandfather’s odyssey, as well as sharing some of the revelations that have found him personally in the United States and the Czech Republic.