Zoltan George Mesko, MD

Zoltán George Meškó, M.D, passed away on December 30, 2024 from natural causes in McLean, Virginia, at the age of 96. Zoltán, or George, as he was also known, was an Emeritus, Associate Professor of Medicine (Pediatric Cardiology) at SUNY. Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Fellow of the American Academy of Cardiology and Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, London.

George was born on November 3, 1928, to Juraj and Margaret Meškó in Košice, Czechoslovakia. George graduated from the Medical School of J.A. Commenius in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1952.

George specialized in Pediatric Cardiology at the Children’s Hospital in Kosice and Bratislava, in Czechoslovakia. In 1956, he was the Physician in Chief at the Heart Institute for Children in Sliac, Czechoslovakia, where he met his beloved wife Judy, who was working there as a nurse. George and Judy went on to have three children, Simone, Robert and Patricia. With the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, George and his family initially emigrated to Tübingen, Germany, as he was a recipient the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship. He was subsequently invited and accepted a Fellowship at Harvard’s Children’s Hospital in Boston, starting a new life in the United States in 1969.

George’s medical publications were featured in peer reviewed journals such as the American Heart Association, the Journal of Pediatrics, and the Journal of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe. He was a member of the American College of Cardiology – ACC.

Besides his specializations, he participated in significant charity work at the Gift of Life Foundation at St. Francis Hospital Heart Center in Roslyn, NY. In 1987, at the initiative of Mrs. Nancy Reagan, his team went to South Korea and examined 500 children with heart disease out of which about 300 traveled to St. Francis Hospital Heart Center for corrective surgery where he was the leading diagnostician before surgery.

In 1990, he initiated the establishment of a Children’s Heart Center in his native land, in Bratislava, now the Slovak Republic, supported by the Heart to Heart Foundation of the American-Slovak diaspora with a grant from the Agency of International Development administered by Project Hope.

In 1996, George retired and moved with his wife to the south of France focusing his energies on writing. His publications include “The lent Conspiracy, A Communist Model of Political Cleansing at the Slovak University in Bratislava after the Second World War”, 2003, also published in the Slovak Republic in 2003 under the title, “Zamlčané sprisahanie”. His first memoir “Following the traces of times long gone by (Po stopách časov zašlých dávno minulých)”, was published in 2016, in the Slovak Republic, and his final memoir entitled, “Confessions of a Refugee, A Journey to the Unknown: August 21, 1968” was published in the U.S. in 2020.

George was a supporter and honoree of the Slovak-American Cultural Center (S-ACC) in New York City whose mission is to preserve the Slovak heritage and promote Slovak cultural, scientific, and athletic activities for the Slovak-American community in the United States.

George is survived by his beloved family, his wife Judy, daughter Patricia, daughter-in-law Natalie, and grand-daughter Vivienne.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Paralyzed Veterans of America, PVA National Processing Center P.O. Box 758589 Topeka, KS 66675-8542 https://secure.pva.org/

Too old to carry arms and fight like the others –
They graciously gave me the inferior role of the chronicler.
I record – I don’t know for whom – the history of the siege.
–Zbigniew Herbert

My hair became a shock of salt,
The frost had left me older.
At last I looked the way I felt,
Kind death was at my shoulder.
–Wilhelm Müller, “The Hoary Head” from Franz Schubert’s “Die Winterreise” song-Lied: 1822.

“Why don’t you say something nice instead of being a smartass?”
–President Joe Biden