Execution Postponed: The True World War II Story of a Greek Resistance Fighter’s Escape, Survival, and Journey to America

A vineyard hand turned school-teacher turned Royal Hellenic Navy cadet, Aris Zavitsanos should have died a dozen times.When Axis troops overran Greece, Aris smuggled rifles past patrol boats and used his trusted “teacher” status to ferry coded messages—efforts that landed him in an Italian-run prison on Greek soil, where a military court condemned him to death. Before the sentence could be carried out, Allied guerrillas blasted open the gates, thrusting him into a war of ambushes, mountain hide-outs, and desperate midnight escapes.Liberation brought no peace. Accused by both Royalists and Communists, Aris navigated a Greece sliding toward civil war, then fled across the Atlantic only to face a new ordeal: an American tribunal determined to deport him as a “dangerous radical.”Execution Postponed is a firsthand chronicle of courage, faith, and stubborn hope—from the olive groves of tiny Meganísi to the halls of U.S. military justice. Readers of Unbroken, Beneath a Scarlet Sky, and The Boys in the Boat will discover a gripping, little-told chapter of World War II and an immigrant saga that proves empires may fall, but character endures. Read more