Toward the end when we were leaving Auschwitz, the young women who were there with me talked about various subjects such as their school days, were they used to go out and the young men they dated. I couldn’t understand how they could talk about such trivial things, but it was their reaction against reality. They hid behind their memories and curled into a cocoon to stop perceiving what was happening around them. I couldn’t do that. My father always said that one had to see life as it was and endure it as such. I believed that and could never get away from it.
Have you ever considered what your life’s philosophy was?
In this life one could give in or not give in. There was no other option. Whatever happens one must not go to bed and say: “I can’t bear it, why am I having such terrible fate.” As soon as this occurs that’s the end. You have to say: “I haven’t done anything wrong, dammit. I’ll sort it somehow; I won’t give in. I’m an honest person, and that in the end must come out.” That was my philosophy. When someone started to abuse me I never gave in to it.
I can imagine, while we have been talking that there must have been moments when I would be expecting tears …
I trained myself not to cry because that made a person much weaker. During the worst moments when lying in bed, it wasn’t possible to escape, but I always tried not to succumb and always hoped to the last moment that it would come off well. In this world nothing is certain, but everything is possible. Sooner or later something may happen. Our generation lived through a permanent war – all the time one had to fight something and do so properly. One matter got solved that appeared to make the situation a bit better, and then another mess occurred. It was a century like the 13th and 14th centuries in the Middle Ages, during The Hundred Years’ War, when hordes murdered and tortured; only, in our century it happened in a more sophisticated form. So many people murdered, so many innocent people perished in the war, so many killed themselves, so many died in the concentration camps, prisons, uranium mines – when all of that is added up it comes to unbelievable numbers. Almost everybody of my age had some very cruel experience that the people of the previous generation wouldn’t ever have dreamed of.
I wrote my book Under a Cruel Star for Ivan. I wrote it at the beginning of my exile, when I was having such a difficult time. I never talked to anyone in detail about my experiences, but I knew that one day I would have to tell Ivan because he would want to find out. I thought: “I’ll write it, and it will be for him so he’ll know what has happened to his family.” I tried to piece my memories together and realized that by doing so I managed to overcome it. When I think about it, it seems very improbable that I could have survived such events and such terrible tension when there wasn’t even the tiniest spark of hope or sanity, but after all that, there was enough determination and love to keep going.
What’s your greatest wish?
I wish for the world to come to its senses, for people to finally agree and stop hating each other. The whole of my life, I have tried not to hate, to overcome those terrible events that happened to me without hating anyone. When people stop hating their fellowmen just because they are a bit different, or richer, or poorer, or less intelligent, when they have a bit of understanding for each other and wish each other all the best, then the world will be a sensible place. However, if people want to settle their debts and find pleasure in vindictiveness and the suffering of their fellowmen, then all is lost; that will be the end. Now we have the available machinery; we could explode it all.
The last words …?
Evil is never absolute. There will always be someone who will survive. Life can’t be fully eliminated; nothing in the world is powerful enough to annihilate absolutely everything. One survives through the will to live and the hope for a better life. While one breathes, one has a future. I keep remembering the worst time, when everything around me toppled and when I experienced the worst atrocities, but something moved inside me and I thought: “Despite all this, I’ll keep on living. Despite the devastation, life exists.”
People ask me frequently what was worse, Nazism or Communism. It is difficult to decide. Nazism was clearly a gangster ideology that encouraged people to the worst behavior, plotting toward wars, calling one race superior to others and simply killing people and stealing; whereas, the Communists abused people’s altruism and kindness. They allured them with talk of humanity’s highest ideals, so it is difficult to say which was worse. I think Communism was worse because it lasted longer, so they could actually do more evil and harm than the Nazis. The statistics say that Stalin murdered more people than the ones who perished in both of the world wars.
It is a terrible thought that in the twentieth century we lived through two of the most dreadful catastrophes of human existence that have occurred since ancient times. Nevertheless, someone survived, started a new life, had children, worked, was useful to society, watched the flowers grow, walked in the woods and swam in the sea. Life went on. Even in the worst moments I could say to myself: “Life can still be good!” I survived twice, and each time it was really dreadful. But now I have a future in those small children, in my grandchildren, and in my son. There’s nothing to regret. Who has won? Stalin is gone. Hitler is gone, and I’m still here. What else could I possibly want?
clockwise, left page: Marta, Heda and Jiří, 1919; Jiří, Ervín and Heda, 1925; Rudolf and Heda, 1937; Rudolf and Heda, 1951; Heda, 1935.
clockwise, right page: Heda and her dog Ďas, 1946; Heda and Ivan, 1951; Heda during the winter of 1956; Heda and Rudolf, 1951.
TIMELINE
1879
Vítězslav Margolius, Rudolf’s father, born in Meziklasí, Bohemia
1884
Berta Löwyová, Rudolf’s mother, born in Pnětluky, Bohemia
1886
Ervín Bloch, Heda’s father, born in Ostředek near Benešov, Bohemia
1891
Marta Diamantová, Heda’s mother, born in Suchdol near Prague
1908
Ervín started working at Waldes Koh-i-noor, Prague
1912
Vítězslav and Berta married
AUGUST 31, 1913
Rudolf Margolius born in Prague
1914–1918
First World War
1914
Ervín recruited into Austrian army
1914
Ervín wounded near Skopje
1916
Ervín and Marta married
1917
Jiří Bloch born in Prague
OCTOBER 1918
SEPTEMBER 15, 1919
Heda Blochová born in Prague
1923
Jindříšek Löwy born, son of Julie Blochová, Ervín’ sister
1925–1938
Heda attended primary and secondary schools, Prague
SEPTEMBER 1938
Munich Agreement, the Third Reich occupied Sudetenland in October 1938
1938–1939
Post Munich Czechoslovakia, the Second Republic
MARCH 14, 1939
Slovakia became an independent state
MARCH 15, 1939
Bohemia and Moravia occupied by the Third Reich
APRIL 3, 1939
Heda married Rudolf Margolius, Vinohrady synagogue, Prague
1939–1945
Second World War
OCTOBER 1941–AUGUST 1944
Heda, Rudolf, Ervín and Marta in Łódź Ghetto
DECEMBER 1941
Vítězslav and Berta Margolius transported to Theresienstadt Ghetto
JANUARY 1942
Vítězslav and Berta perished in Riga
JUNE–JULY 1942
Jiří Bloch transported to Theresienstadt Ghetto and then to Maly Trostenets where he perished.
OCTOBER 1942
Kateřina Blochová, Heda’s grandmother, perished in Treblinka
1942–1944
Ervín’s five sisters and four of their husbands perish in extermi
nation camps
1942–1944
Vítězslav’s four brothers and three of their wives perish in extermination camps
JANUARY 1943
Jindříšek Löwy died in Łódź Ghetto
AUGUST 1944
Ervín and Marta perished upon arrival in Auschwitz
AUGUST–SEPTEMBER 1944
Heda and Rudolf in Auschwitz
OCTOBER 1944–JANUARY 1945
Heda in Christianstadt and other concentration camps
OCTOBER 1944–APRIL 1945
Rudolf in Riederloh, Mühldorf, Dachau concentration camps
JANUARY–FEBRUARY 1945
Heda in a death march to Bergen-Belsen
FEBRUARY 1945
Heda escaped and returned to Prague
FEBRUARY 1945–MAY 1945
Heda in hiding in Prague
APRIL–JUNE 1945
Rudolf in Garmisch-Partenkirchen refugee camp
MAY 1945
Heda participated in the Prague Uprising
MAY 9, 1945
Prague liberated by the Red Army
1945–1948
Czechoslovakia, the Third Republic
JUNE 1945
Rudolf returned to Prague
1945–1949
Heda at Symposion publishing house
1945–1949
Rudolf at Central Federation of Czechoslovak Industry
FEBRUARY 1947
Ivan Margolius born
FEBRUARY 1948
Communist coup in Czechoslovakia
1949–1952
Rudolf Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade
1950–1952
Heda at Rovnost publishing house
JANUARY 10, 1952
Rudolf Margolius arrested
NOVEMBER 20–27, 1952
Slánský Trial, Prague
DECEMBER 3, 1952
Rudolf Margolius executed
FEBRUARY 1955
Heda married Pavel Kovály
1955–1968
Heda translated over 25 works of fiction, memoirs and philosophy
JULY 1966
Ivan immigrated to the United Kingdom
AUGUST 20–21, 1968
Czechoslovakia invaded by the Warsaw Pact armies
AUTUMN 1968
Heda emigrated to the USA
1973
Heda published Na vlastní kůži [The Time at Firsthand]
1974–1989
Heda translated for the Czech émigré press 68 Publishers, Toronto
1975
Heda began working at Harvard Law School Library
1985
Heda published her mystery crime novel, Nevina [Innocence]
1986
Heda published the definitive version of Under a Cruel Star
NOVEMBER 1989
Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia
1993
Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia
1996
Heda and Pavel returned to Prague
1999
Heda participated in A Trial in Prague; film released in 2000
2001
Hitler, Stalin and I film released
2006
Pavel died in Prague
2010
Heda died in Prague
Helena Třeštíková and Heda Margolius Kovály in Heda’s apartment, Soukenická, Prague, August 2000. Photo: Vlastimil Hamernik.
Heda Margolius Kovály, 1991. Courtesy Margolius Family Archive.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Ivan Margolius is very grateful to Helena Třeštíková for her idea and arrangement of this interview and for her permission to publicize it for the world audience. Ivan also wishes to thank Carrie Paterson and DoppelHouse Press for publishing the English edition.