Listen Young Lovers

Originally Aired: May 31, 1954 Suspense #554, "Listen Young Lovers," presents the true story of a desperate escape from Communist tyranny in Czechoslovakia. Yinrik, a 21-year-old university student, faces his inquisitors after being caught with a forbidden Western philosophy book. Threatened with execution or forced indoctrination, he returns home to his fiancée Malada, where they secretly listen to Radio Free Europe and dream of freedom. When a party official named Stefan arrives with thinly veiled threats, the young couple realizes time has run out. They must flee immediately or face certain death. With only the clothes on their backs and small bottles of poison in case of capture, Yinrik and Malada begin a treacherous 300-mile journey toward the border. Posing as casual hikers without papers or passports, they must evade guards, border patrols, informers, and tracking dogs. As they make their way through mountain roads and across rain-swollen rivers, every encounter threatens to end their desperate bid for freedom. When they take shelter from a storm in a barn, they're discovered by a farmer with a pitchfork who demands to know their true purpose.