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

Content Warning: This study guide and the memoir contain references to antisemitism and violence, as well as descriptions of conditions in a concentration camp during the Nazi holocaust.

Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968, a memoir by Heda Margolius Kovály, was first published under this title in 1986. The memoir was originally published in Czech as Na vlastní kůži (On your own skin) in 1973, by 68 Publishers, an independent press operated by and for the Czech expatriate community in Toronto, Canada. In the same year, an English translation of the first part of the book was published by Horizon Press, in New York, as The Victors and the Vanquished. Heda Margolius Kovály was a Czech writer, editor, and translator. In addition to Under a Cruel Star, she is the author of the 1985 crime novel Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Street and the coauthor, with the filmmaker Helena Třeštíková, of Hitler, Stalin, and I: An Oral History, first published in 2018.

Summary

The memoir begins in Prague during World War II. After the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, Heda and her family are sent to a ghetto, and, later, to concentration camps in Poland.