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

Heda is the author, protagonist, and narrator of this memoir. A fiercely intelligent and brave person, she withstands decades of injustice and suffering, all while maintaining her ability to recognize and value beauty and kindness. She is Jewish, and during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, she is arrested and sent to a concentration camp. This experience teaches her to be wary of totalizing ideologies, and as a result, she never fully trusts the Communist Party that rises to power in the Czech Republic after the Nazis’ defeat. While others, including her husband Rudolf, believe in the utopian promises of communism, Heda notices that the party’s leaders live in luxury while others go hungry. When the party’s growing totalitarianism ensnares her husband, she is shocked and frightened but not surprised.

Heda harbors an inclination to recognize beauty in the world, and her penchant for the written word allows her to examine the world thoroughly. In her memoir, she writes about human society as existing away from the natural world, contrasting the innate good of nature with the insidious behaviors of the Czech Communist Party.