Rudolf Margolius

In the memoir Under a Cruel Star by Heda Margolius Kovály documents her life as a Holocaust survivor giving insight on the social, political, and cultural changes in Prague post World War 2. Kovaly includes stories of the drastic differences that her home city of Prague had endured during the war as they adopted ideals from the Nazi regime. These cultural pressures were forced upon the city and resulted in a different tone of life during the 1950’s. Ultimately resulting in a political upheaval…

In the Novel Under A Cruel Star, Heda Margolius Kovaly sheds light on the repercussions of not only the German concentration camps in World War 2, but also shows how the War led to the adoption, practice, and repercussions of a hostile communist government. In this novel courage, not only in a power to survive, but in a power to provide for family, is the most prevalent issue brought about in Hedas retelling of her time in the concentration camps and her time as wife to a communist official. One…

The books Persepolis 2 and Under a Cruel Star tell the story of two women who were labeled as malicious because of what their country was going through. In Under a Cruel Star, the story was about Heda Margolius Kovaly. She told her journey of the life she lived being a Jew, and after being free her country was taken over by a Communist society. Persepolis 2 is the story of Marjane Satrapi. She told the story of how her parents did not desire for her to live in a country that was at war. In…

Love and Hope are Infinitely More Powerful than Hate and Fury: A Response to Kovály’s Under A Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968 Heda Margolius Kovály’s memoir, Under A Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, tells a story of love and loss, of hope and horror, of life as a persecuted Czech Jew under the Nazi and Communist regimes. Her account emphasizes courage in the face of fear, and it speaks of the facts behind these regimes, as she knows them to be true. In this book, Kovály…

re HIS 1400 In the memoir Under A Cruel Star, Kovaly begins her narrative briefly talking about her experience during the Holocaust. Kovaly’s narrative becomes more in-depth when she begins to talk about the last days of the war, when she and others escaped from the concentration camps. As the plot thicken in this narrative, Kovaly talks about how she experienced life after her escape and under the Communist system in Czechoslovakia. During this time, Westerns considered the Soviet-style…