Pavol Rankov’s award-winning novel, It Happened on the First of September (or Some Other Time), tells the story of Czechoslovakia from 1938 to 1968, from the beginning of World War II through the Prague Spring, by following the lives of three friends, Honza Bízek, who is Czech; Peter Rónai, who is Hungarian; and Gabriel Rosenberg, who is Jewish, and their pursuit of the same girl, Mária Belajová, who is Slovak.