Czech ‘Em Out Book Club meets on the third Monday of each month with NCSML volunteer Steve Pederson in the Skala Bartizal Library following the reading of each months selected book. You can purchase this month’s book from the Museum Store.
May’s selection — Hitler, Stalin and I: An Oral History, by Heda Margolius Kovály and Helena Treštíková
Hitler, Stalin and I is an oral history of a renowned Czech author, Heda Margolius Kovály (1919–2010), whose optimism and faith in people survived grueling experiences under authoritarian regimes. Based on interviews with award-winning filmmaker Helena Třeštíková, Kovály recounts her family history in Czechoslovakia, the deprivations of Łódź Ghetto, how she miraculously left Auschwitz, fled from a death march, failed to find sanctuary amongst former friends in Prague as a concentration camp escapee, and participated in the liberation of Prague. Later under Communist rule, she suffered extreme social isolation as a pariah after her first husband Rudolf Margolius was unjustly accused in the infamous Slánský Trial and executed for treason. Her son and translator of the book, Ivan Margolius, adds critical contextual information surrounding the trial and its recently uncovered documents and film footage. Remarkably, Kovály, exiled in the United States after the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968, only had love for her country and continued to believe in its people. She returned to Prague in 1996.
About the Author:
Heda Margolius Kovály (1919–2010) was a renowned Czech writer and translator born to Jewish parents. Her acclaimed memoir, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941–1968 (Holmes & Meier, 1997) has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her posthumously translated crime novel Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Street (Soho Press, 2015)—based on her own experiences living under Stalinist oppression—was named an NPR Best Book in 2015.
Ivan Margolius is the son of Rudolf and Heda Margolius. He is an architect, translator and author of memoirs, books and articles on art, architecture, engineering, design and automobile history. He has been awarded several writing prizes, including winning the 2017 British Czech and Slovak Association First Prize for his article about architects Karel Honzik and FRS Yorke, “Honzík and Yorke: How a Czech Architect Became the Prime Mover in the Ascent of Modern Architecture in Great Britain,” as well as the second prize from the BCSA in 2014 for his article “A Sound of Sauerkraut Exploding.”
