EUROPEAN HISTORY / MEMOIR / WOMEN'S STUDIES

UNDER A CRUEL STAR

A Life in Prague 1941-1968

Heda Margolius Kovály's memoir of the crisis of modern Czech history recounts the tragedies and terrors in the life of a young Jewish woman, beginning with the Nazi invasion and her deportation to Auschwitz. She eventually returned to Prague, where she took part in the May 1945 uprising.

The postwar years brought hardship and fears of a new kind under Stalinism. She poignantly recounts the arrest of her husband, his conviction in the infamous 1952 Slansky trial, and his execution. Kovály proceeds to fill in the colorless years that marked Czechoslovakia until 1968, ending on the bittersweet note that was the Prague Spring and her own self-exile.

"A story of the human spirit as its most indomitable ... one of the outstanding autobiographies of the century."
—San Francisco Chronicle-Examiner

"Once in a rare while we read a book that puts the urgencies of our times and ourselves in perspectives, making us confront the darker realities of human nature. That has just happened to me."
—Anthony Lewis, New York Times

"This compelling memoir offers one accout of the suffering many Jews in Czechoslovakia faced in the 1940s through 1960s. During World War II, the author lived first in a ghetto, then in several concentration camps. She lost her family, but moved to Prague and married a childhood friend. When her husband became a government employee, it seemed they would have a secure future. However, betrayal and fear led to the trial and execution of her husband, and Heda was left to care for their son alone. While the book is deeply personal, larger themes emerge, and readers find themselves reflecting on home, power, prejudice, nationalism , politics and immigration. It is a tribute to her writing style that, despite the depressing nature of the subject matter, readers feel compelled to continue reading."
—Horizons: The Magazine of Presbyterian Women