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

In January of 1953, Heda faces a new battle. She is to be moved from her apartment and sent to a run-down cottage outside of town. The dwelling has no electricity or water. There are no jobs in the area. She convinces the secretary from the National Committee to visit her at her current apartment, where she feeds him alcoholic drinks and gets him to sign a document stating that the cottage is slated for demolition.

Heda avoids moving to the cottage, and instead is sent to other quarters. She is not allowed to keep many of her possessions, including a radio that Ivan loves. She receives work knitting scarves in a factory, and whilethe job does not pay well, it at least provides “shelter from the Labor Office and the charge of parasitism” (156).

Stalin dies. The country mourns his death, while Heda mourns the fact that if Stalin had died a bit earlier,Rudolf might still be alive. A month later, Gottwald, head of Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party, also dies. The Party receives a new president, Antonin Zapotocky. Heda moves into a single-room apartment with a bare electric bulb. Ivan is now six years old, and helps with housework when Heda is too sick to leave bed.