Vojta Beneš

A member of the Czech Social Democratic Party, he served as a deputy in the Czechoslovak parliament from 1925 to 1935, and as senator in 1935, resigning the latter post upon his brother's election to the presidency the following year.

With the conclusion of the Munich Agreement in 1938 and the subsequent Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, Beneš escaped to the U.S., where he began campaigning again for Czechoslovak freedom after nearly twenty-five years.

After the liberation of Czechoslovakia by Allied forces in 1945, Vojta Beneš returned to public life in his country, serving from 1946 to 1948 in the Constituent National Assembly.

Following the Communist Party coup in 1948, Beneš, with the support of his daughter in Illinois, returned for the third and final time to North America with the help of the U.S. State Department.

He was the author of a number of works, including the war-time books The Mission of a Small Nation and Ten Million Prisoners, an illustrated volume of poetry for children, Naše Maminka (Our Mother), and others.