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

“It is not hard for a totalitarian regime to keep people ignorant. Once you relinquish your freedom for the sake of ‘understood necessity,’ for Party discipline, for conformity with the regime, for the greatness and glory of the Fatherland, or for any of the substitutes that are so convincingly offered, you cede your claim to the truth. Slowly, drop by drop, your life begins to ooze away just as surely as if you had slashed your wrists; you have voluntarily condemned yourself to helplessness.”

The intense power of ideology to manipulate a person’s moral compass is explored repeatedly throughout this text. Both the Nazis and Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party ply their citizens with lies until their citizens are unaware of actual truths.

“I did not say much about Auschwitz. Human speech can only express what the mind can hold. You cannot describe hammer blows that crush your brain.”

Heda expresses her belief that language can express only a fraction of lived experience, especially when that experience is traumatic. While one can report observations, attempts to convey the experience in words inevitably fall short.

“But should we free ourselves...[a]t that moment, I understood—one single act would be enough. All it would take was one decision and I would reach the greatest freedom that anyone at that time and place on earth could possibly have. Once I slipped out from under the bayonets, I would be standing outside the system. I would not belong anywhere or to anything. No one would know of my existence. Perhaps I would only gain a few days or a few hours, but it would be a freedom that millions of people could not even imagine. No prohibitions, no orders would be of concern to me. Should I be caught, I would be like a bird shot in flight, like the wind caught in a sail.”

For Heda, the idea of freedom accompanies moments in her life when she has nothing to lose. These moments seem to stand in opposition to the oppression she often experiences throughout her life.

“The step that lay before us, the transition from the freedom of a bird to the freedom among people proved to be the most difficult part of our journey. We had to find home again, to find the place where we belonged, and, for that, the simple fact of return was not enough.”

Heda comments on the difficult transition back to her life in Prague following her escape from the Nazis. While she is free, she continues to encounter indifference toward her situation, which leaves her without a home.

“The war ended the way a passage through a tunnel ends. From far away you could see the light ahead, a gleam that kept growing, and its brilliance seemed ever more dazzling to you huddled there in the dark the longer it took to reach it. But when at last the train burst out into the glorious sunshine, all you saw was a wasteland full of weeds and stones, and a heap of garbage.”

Though World War II has ended, its enduring effects in Europe and beyond are devastating. Before the war ends, there is the feeling that conditions will improve, but for many postwar Czechoslovakians, this hope turns out to be far from accurate.

“Some people came back silent, and some talked incessantly as though talking about a thing would make it vanish. Actually, just the opposite is true: once things and thoughts are expressed and described they acquire a new reality, as though by giving them words we give them part of ourselves. After that, they will not allow us to leave them behind.”

Kovály suggests that language is powerful enough to alter reality and to create the world anew. Language betrays Rudolf during his arrest and subsequent trial when he is falsely accused and coerced to make a false confession. Heda struggles when she seeks written proof from the government of Rudolf’s innocence.

“I have often thought that many of our people turned to communism not so much in revolt against the existing political system, but out of sheer despair over human nature which showed itself at its very worst after the war. Since it is impossible for men to give up on mankind, they blame the social order in which they live; they condemn the human condition.”

In the years immediately after the war, many people believe in the ideals of communism in Prague, but it is made possible only through the tragedy preceding the postwar years. Kovály describes communism as a rejection of human nature, a view at odds with the more optimistic one she holds in the immediate aftermath of the war.

“We had listened with only half an ear when our history teachers discussed torture or the persecution of innocent people. Those things could only have happened a long time ago, in the dark ages. When it happened in our time and in a form far worse than we could imagine, it felt like the end of the world. It seemed to us that we were witnessing a total break in the evolution of mankind, the complete collapse of man as a rational being.”

Kovály notes that even as the horrors of the Holocaust began, they seemed impossible in the modern era. This statement sounds like a cautionary note—a reminder that the horrors of the past can always be repeated. Humans can believe society is inherently decent, but when darker truths prevail, it can feel as if the apocalypse is not far behind.

“When the arrests first started, it was generally assumed that the accused were all guilty of something. Few people at that time chose to believe that there was something basically wrong with our judicial system. After all, the accused almost invariably confessed.”

Heda shows how the judges cooperated with Czechoslovakia’s communist government, doing their bidding and finding the innocent guilty as needed. This situation further reinforces the difficult reality that those in power are willing to alter truths and kill innocent people to remain in power.

“The more dignified and humane an image of man was drawn by the Party, the less did men themselves come to mean in society. The better and more joyous our lives appeared on the pages of the newspapers, the sadder they were in reality.”

Without propaganda, the crimes of the Communist Party would not have persisted for as long as they did. Under a Cruel Star chronicles the extent to which that propaganda impacted the citizens of Prague, turning family members against one another and offering a false version of reality.

“Heda, […] you know how much my work means to me. I’ve given it all that’s good in me. And it’s not only that. I thought that with this job, life had offered me a chance to do some good, to make up for our passivity in the past. I know I’ve been a bad husband and a bad father for the last two years. I’ve neglected you for the sake of my work. I’ve denied myself everything I love. But there is one thing I cannot give up: I cannot give up my conviction that my ideal is essentially sound and good, just as I cannot explain why it has failed—as it apparently has. I still believe this is a crisis that will pass. If you’re right, if it really is a fraud, then I’ve been an accomplice in a terrible crime. And if I had to believe that, I could not go on living...I would not want to...”

Rudolf truly believes in the ideals of the Communist Party, and he is unable to acknowledge the potentially corrupt practices and the danger of his commitment. This ignorance will ultimately lead to his death.

“It was a strange moment. I found myself accepting horror and disaster as though an old companion who had taken leave of me for a while was now back beside me. And then another familiar sensation took hold of me—that inner bracing of strength we discover when the worst has happened, when we know there is no way out and there can be no help coming from anyone but ourselves. It springs from a source so deeply hidden that we are unaware it exists, but it always comes to the rescue when life bares its fangs and attacks.”

Heda recounts her feelings after she finds out that Rudolf has been arrested. After her initial horror, she relocates her inner strength. Heda points out that such strength seems to arise only when she truly needs it, from a source that is innate yet unknowable.

“By that time, I had become like a leper, to be avoided by anyone who valued his life. Even the most casual encounter with me could arouse suspicion and invite disaster. I understood that and could bear the isolation better than most people in the same situation. The war had inured me to it and, besides, I knew that I had no right to expose other people to danger. Why should anyone risk his job or the safety of his family or, perhaps, his freedom, just to talk to me? It is natural for people to think first of those for whom they are responsible. If everyone were a hero, what would courage be worth?”

When Heda does not receive help after she escapes from the Nazis, she feels disrespected. As an older person, she comments on the lack of aid offered to her after her husband, Rudolf, is arrested. Having matured and endured so much suffering, she now understands how someone can avoid responsibility to others and how rare true courage can be.

“Sometimes I slept only three or four hours a night, but I made it an iron rule never to work on Sunday afternoons and to make sure to save up enough money so that every week Ivan and I could take the streetcar to the outskirts of Prague and walk in the woods. In spring, we played in the grass and sailed little boats in the brook in the wooded valley just beyond the last stop of the streetcar.”

Heda demonstrates her indomitable will to live and experience the beauty of life. Amid all her suffering, she prioritizes spending time with her son so that he may understand that not all the world works in the manner that postwar Czechoslovakian society functions.

“Life in Prague, from which I was almost entirely excluded by this time, had acquired a totally negative character. People no longer aspired toward things but away from them. All they wanted was to avoid trouble. They tried not to be seen anywhere, not to talk to anyone, not to attract any attention. Their greatest satisfaction would be that nothing happened, that no one had been fired or arrested or questioned or followed by the secret police. Some fifty thousand people had so far been jailed in our small country. More were disappearing every day.”

Heda describes life under a totalitarian surveillance state. Society transforms as fear of being arrested and executed leads to silence. The silence breeds suspicion and paranoia, and most people seek to distance themselves from anything potentially dangerous. Despite these precautions, innocent people are still punished.

“The people who, in my experience, proved most astute and dependable in a crisis were always those who professed the simplest ideology: love of life. Not only did they possess an instinctive ability to protect themselves from danger but they were often willing to help others as a matter of course, without ulterior motives or any heroic posturing.”

Under a Cruel Star simultaneously documents the horrors of both the Nazi regime and communist Prague and functions as a celebration of life and experience. In her memoir, Kovály asserts the need to have a love for life in the face of adversity. Altruism and empathy are armor and shields in the battle against evil.

“I saw Rudolf’s face crisscrossed by the wire pattern as though by a tissue of scars. But then, in just moments, the black web began to dissolve. I looked straight into his eyes and saw no despair, no fear, only a strange, distant calm. It was the calm a man finds only at the very bottom of suffering.”

Heda is allowed to visit Rudolf in prison, seeing him for the first time in over a year. Rudolf’s entire worldview has collapsed as the ideals for which he fought are now responsible for his loss of life and family. Rudolf’s only defense mechanism against utter despair is disassociation.

“Before dawn, I fell asleep for a few minutes just at the time, I later learned, that Rudolf was dying without a single word. More than thirty years have now passed and that night is still not over. It remains to this day as a screen onto which my present life is projected. I measure all my happiness and all my misfortunes against it, in the way that the height of mountains and the depth of valleys are measured against the level of the sea.”

Some readers may understand the death of Rudolf as the most tragic event in Heda’s life. She has experienced great suffering before this moment, but she could escape from those situations or control them in some way. Heda is unable to do anything to rectify her husband’s situation; his subsequent murder by the Communist Party creates a trauma that never leaves her.

“In February 1956, a new era began. Nikita Khrushchev, who had long been involved in a power struggle at the Kremlin, had realized that a bold act was needed to strengthen his position. Being a shrewd politician, he also saw that the time was ripe for breaking away from the barbarity of Stalinist rule. In a secret speech delivered to a closed session of the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, Khrushchev cast the first stone at the God-like image of Stalin and disclosed some of Stalin’s worst crimes.”

Stalin’s secrets are not exposed under an obligation to morality and truth. Rather, they are revealed for political and personal gain. Under a Cruel Star demonstrates again and again that political decisions rarely serve the people; they serve primarily the politicians making them.

“In Czechoslovakia, the prison gates opened quietly, unobtrusively, and through them walked shattered, emaciated people, blinking their eyes in the daylight. They came back to find their homes destroyed, their wives sick and exhausted, their children strangers to them. Former friends avoided them, not out of fear any more, but out of shame and embarrassment. Their health was ruined or gravely damaged; some died shortly after their return. It often took months before they could find housing and work. State Security kept them under constant observation lest they hurt themselves by recounting too vividly what they had experienced in the prisons.”

Heda’s recounting of the prisoners leaving communist prisons resembles the exits of prisoners who left concentration camps. After they are free, a transition back into civilian life is nearly impossible; individual trauma and collective trauma impede their return to normalcy. Continued government surveillance of these individuals adds insult to injury.

“It is astounding how terrified such men of action are of words. No act is too sordid for them to carry out, no act disturbs their sleep, so long as it is not called by its proper name, so long as it is not put into words. In this lies the great power of words, which are the only weapon of the defenseless.”

Heda is powerless to defend herself from the horrors of the Nazi regime and the communist government. In both cases, victims of both powers endure a communication breakdown. Many people draw inside themselves or refuse to speak to potential traitors out of fear. Regimes accomplish their goals by scaring their people into silence; Heda’s memoir defies this expectation.

“All these young people had been born and reared in a society walled in by censorship, where the expression of any independent opinion was routinely treated as a crime. What could they know about democracy? How could they even know what they wanted? But as the evening progressed, those of us who were much older grew ever more amazed and impressed. We were taken not only by the precision and clarity of the ideas that were voiced but by the high level of the discussion and the discipline of that mass of young people. They knew exactly what they wanted and what they did not want, what was open for compromise and what they refused to give up.”

This passage offers a glimpse into the Prague Spring, during which Czechoslovakians began the move toward democracy. In this passage, Heda witnesses a society recreating itself.

“Standing in the crowd, I felt that this was the supreme moment of our lives. During the night of the invasion, when we lost everything, we found something that people in our world hardly dare to hope for: ourselves and each other. In all those faces, in all those eyes, I saw that we all thought and felt alike, that we all strove for the same things.”

In Under a Cruel Star, Heda illustrates what happens to a society when people lose their liberties. In this passage, Kovály offers a contrasting view as she describes people working together for the betterment of everyone.