Under A Cruel Star: A Life In Prague, 1941-1968

Heda Margolius Kovály’s memoir details the horrors of Nazi-led genocide during World War II, but begins, somewhat surprisingly, with ideas of hope and love. It is these feelings, after all, that allow Heda to persevere and ultimately share her experience. She calls these feelings “a shy little bird” that live within her, and knows that “love and hope are infinitely more powerful than hate and fury, and that somewhere beyond the line of [the] horizon there was life indestructible, always triumphant” (5).

Soon after these positive feelings are introduced, however, the reader is presented with the menacing historical figures of Adolf Hitler and Stalin. In the fall of 1941, the mass deportation of Jews from Prague begins. Heda and her family are sent to Exposition Hall which is “like a medieval madhouse” (5). There, she witnesses gravely ill people “die on the spot” (5). She notices “the most handsome man” she has ever seen. He is a professor from Vienna, dressed in a suit. She eagerly listens to him talk about classical literature and ancient Rome. She is very drawn to him.

Two days later, Heda is moved again, this time sent away on a train to Lodz, then taken to the concentration camp Litzmannstadt.