Who Is Heda Margolious Kovaly's Under A Cruel Star

Under a Cruel Star was a touching book and was unlike anything I have read before. Heda Margolious Kovaly wrote this memoir sharing all of her first hand experiences throughout her life and told us what life was like in Czechoslovakia. The whole memoir was essentially a timeline of her life as it started from when she was a child, but particularly talks about her horrid life after her first husband, Rudolf, faced the death sentence for being associated with the Slansky scandal. Rudolf and her both joined the communist party, as they were both survivors of the concentration camps and wanted to help improve Prague. After surviving Auschwitz, losing her family and escaping from a death march you would think her hardships stopped there. Yet they continued throughout her life. It

was an emotional read but extremely informative and showed things from an inside perspective.

The memoir really exemplified how strong of a woman Kovaly is.

Who was Heda Margolious Kovaly? Heda Margolious Kovaly was the main character of the whole entire memoir and was also the author. This book is her sharing her experiences and everything she encountered throughout her tough life. To start off Heda was one of the many Jews who was taken into the concentration camps with her family. Her whole family was forced to leave their home and go the Lodz Ghetto in 1941. She watched her cousin slowly suffer and die. Then her and her family were sent to Auschwitz and Heda was separated from her parents, who were then killed by the gas chambers. Heda somehow managed to escape a death march from Poland into Reich Germany, with her friend Hanka in hopes of having a better life. She was extremely lucky to escape because she was one of the estimated 10,000 survivors. Escaping was the only thing on her mind because staying in those camps was just not an option. She could not just wait for her death to come; “There is, perhaps, nothing harder than waiting passively for death.” (16). After escaping, which was extremely exhausting and

entailed a long trek, she made it back to Prague. It was in Prague where she went to many of her friends doors for help and shelter but was denied by everyone. All of them were too scared to help her so was she on her own to roam the streets of Prague. After visiting her good friend Jenda who she thought for sure would help, but unfortunately was turned down, she came to the realization just how bad her current situation was. Everyone feared the system and did not want to suffer the consequences of helping Heda. This was especially dangerous because Nazis were doing daily street occurrences and Heda had no identity paper to present. She knew surviving was going to be hard as she had no food and no place to hide, she states “Now I was looking for a human being whose humanity would prove greater than his fear” (28). Even when she found friends who did not refuse to help she would leave to prevent them from any danger she would bring.
Later after she reunited with her husband Rudolf, who she met when she was a child, things started to look up for her. She married Rudolf and had a son with him named Ivan in 1947. Both Heda and Rudolf joined the Communist Party. Unfortunately Rudolf became extremely involved in the party which led to him being arrested and investigated during a party purge and eventually executed. Her life was beyond complicated when people heard of Rudolf being in jail and seen as betraying the people. She suffered the many repercussions of this. She lost her job and it was near impossible to find a new one. People on the street would avoid her and look the other way because they did not want to be associated with her or her “traitor” husband. Heda then became very ill and could not even take care of her own son. She had no income to even help support Ivan. Doctors refused to help her or were told by the authorities to stop helping her so trying to recover was problematic. On top of that all her belongings were confiscated from her as well as her money and apartment. Her and Ivan were forced into a small one room apartment, which she fought greatly for to even obtain. Ivan who was only six years old at the time tried his best to take care of the unlivable apartment and his mother. It was a miracle they even survived living in there. Then she entered her second marriage with an old friend Pavel Kovaly who was always a great friend to her, and things started to get better again. She soon landed a job as a translator and Ivan escaped Prague for London. Heda left Prague in 1968 to go to America and to finally get away from the crookedness in Prague, and got her memoirs published! Heda lived a long and unfair life and was able to overcome many things. To say she was a strong woman would be an understatement, she preserved through all her problems no matter how bad things got and wanted the best for her son.
Why did she and her husband join the Communist Party after the war, what was that like, and how did they differ in their devotion to it? Heda and Rudolf both joined the Communist Party after the war with good intentions. They truly understood the corrupt and unfair system they were living under and wanted to change it for the future so other people would not have to experience what they did. They both were survivors of the concentration camps so especially wanted a change, “Since we did survive, we want to dedicate what is left of our lives to the future” (61). They wanted to fight back and make things better for everyone. Heda and Rudolf both viewed communism to be the answer to the problems that were happening, but Heda mostly joined for Rudolf. His experiences at the concentration camps really drove him to becoming involved with the communist party. Heda and Rudolf felt differently about their devotions to the party because Rudolf was much more devoted and felt much more deeply about the party. He committed his life to the party and it consumed him. He worked so many long nights in the office which led him to completely neglect his wife and son. Rudolf worked his way up and even became deputy minister for foreign trade. Since he obtained such a high position, people started to treat them like they were superior and deserved more respect over others. At the anniversary of Victorious February gala the wife of President of the Republic, Marta Gottwald, noticed that Heda did not have a drink in her hand. Considering Heda was the wife of someone important in the party that should not be the case “The men around me signaled frantically for a waiter and, when one leaped with tray, I took a glass of wine”(100). This just showing how people thought she deserved better treatment and treated as someone special which Heda did not like at all.
 Due to Rudolf’s high up poisition and devotion to the party, he barley got to spend time with Ivan because he was always coming back in the middle of the night when Ivan was sleeping. Even when he would come back from work the party would still consume all his thoughts so him and Heda would often sit in silence. Heda quickly started to worry about her husband, his safety, and his sanity. After many people started to get arrested for the trials she got particularly nervous and wanted her husband to step back. When she asked this he completely refused and almost seemed offended by her asking. He thought that if he left and if all the good people who were in the party abandoned things now, things would become even worse. Rudolf begged Heda to show some confidence in him and assured her he could handle it. He told her he would not be arrested because he did not do anything wrong. He did not want to give up because he was devoted to making a change. Heda was not that devoted to the party and really only joined it for Rudolf, therefore she did not understand why Rudolf invested so much of his time and energy into the party. Although the party started out with good intentions, overtime it ended up being corrupted and Heda stated “The enemy was no longer outside but within the Party as well”(98). She realized she did not want to be connected to the party but Rudolf wanted to do anything he could to make it better.
What happened to Rudolf and why? What role did anti-Semitism play? Rudolf was a victim of the corrupt Slansky trials and his life was wrongfully taken. Rudolf was one of the many people involved in the communist party who were put in prison and placed under investigation organized by the Soviet advisors. When it came time for his trial he went on the stand completely “admitted” to everything, although he never did those things. He endured physical pressure and was coerced into signing a false confession. Therefore Rudolf was sentenced to the death sentence after being charged with conspiracy. Heda was in the hospital at the time where she begged her nurse to take her to a tv so she could watch her husbands trial. Sitting in a wheel chair she watched Rudolf admit to things she very well knew he did not do and was struck with devastation and confusion. This is a perfect example of how corrupt the system was and how they forced innocent people to admit to things they did not do. Years later in 1963 the Czechoslovak Communists began to rehabilitate their victims.
Rudolf being a Jew was a victim of anti-semitism. Most of the 14 accused in Slansky trials were Jewish, Rudolf being one of them. Rudolf was also one of the 11 who were hanged. The numbers speak for themselves, and the fact that majority of the 14 accused were Jewish was not a coincidence especially with the history of anti-semitism that was displayed under the Nazis. One of the reasons he was a victim of the Slansky trials was because he was Jewish and was being discriminated against. The Soviet advisors who organized everything did not just happen to pick majority of Jewish people to charge with conspiracy. Heda bombarded many people when her husband was first placed in jail to get any help she could to prove his innocence and many of the people knew Rudolf was completely innocent but could not speak up. He was forced into admitting to being a traitor even though he was pure, and him being Jewish only worsened his case. Rudolf was looked at as one of those people who were a “dirty jew”. The Jewish people who were associated with the Slansky trials were viewed as being apart of a Jewish conspiracy and betraying everyone. This just showing people assumed the Jews were up to no good and were conspiring. Due to the fact they were Jewish they were the easy targets to pin this on and were being discriminated against, proving anti-semitism once again.