Hija de judíos acomodados, Heda Kovály vio como su mundo se venía abajo con la Ocupación alemana de Checoslovaquia. Fue deportada junto a su familia al gueto de Lodz en 1941 y luego a Auschwitz, donde sus padres fueron asesinados en 1944. Kovaly, sin embargo, logró escaparse un año más tarde, cuando la trasladaban junto a otros prisioneros al campo de Bergen-Belsen.
Tras permanecer oculta en Praga hasta el final de la guerra, en 1945 consiguió reunirse con su novio Rudolf Margolius, que también había sobrevivido a los campos, y con quien se casaría poco después. En 1952, Margolius era secretario de Estado de Comercio Exterior del gobierno comunista checoslovaco cuando, en una de las primeras purgas estalinistas, fue acusado junto a otros trece miembros del gobierno de alta traición. Once de ellos, incluido Margolius, fueron condenados a muerte. Tras su muerte, heda Kovály y su hijo fueron repudiados por el establishment y se vieron obligados a llevar una vida precaria durante años.

This is a very well-written memoir beginning in 1941 when, under Nazi occupation, Jews in Prague were ordered to Lodtz and eventually to Auschwitz. After the war Stalin took over where Hitler left off. In principle communism sounded good, and both Kovaly and her husband Rudolph Margolius applied for party membership. Life again turned tragic with the arrest of her husband under the Stalinist terror of the 1950s. Margolius was executed; Kovaly survived the long ordeal. In 1968 after Russia invaded Czechoslovakia she was able to leave.

Kovaly tells the story of this harrowing life in clear, intelligent writing that shows her strength of character.

"Springtimes in Prague - who could forget them? Forsythias on the Letna Plain. The flowering hills of Strahov. The chestnuts of Zofin. The gulls on Jirasek Bridge. There is no other city like Prague. It is not only the beauty of the buildings, of the tower and bridges, though it is that too. They rise up from the slopes and riverbanks in such harmony that it seems nature created them alongside its trees and flowers. But what is unique about Prague is the relation between the city and its people. Prague is not an uncaring backdrop which stands impassive, ignoring happiness and suffering alike. Prague lives in the lives of her people and they repay her with the love we usually reserve for other human beings."

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A wonderful book espusing the author's difficult life in Prague, initially under Nazi occupation, and more importantly, later, under Soviet occupation. It is an autobiography, in which the author presents a poignant image of Czechoslovakia under communism: a brutal place, in which one could easily be outcast as an 'enemy of the people', and be condemned either to death, or to live the rest of one's life in shame and guilt, judged by the rest of society. ( )

Hija de judíos acomodados, heda vio como su mundo se vino abajo con la ocupació alemana de checoslovaquia. Fue deportada junto a su familia a Auschwitz, donde sus padres fueron asesinados. En 1952, su marido secretario de estado del gobierno comunista checo, fue condenado a muerte en una de las primeras purgas estalinistas. Tras su muerte, heda y su hijo fueron repudiados y llevaron una vida precaria durante años. ( )

Heda was a young woman when she was imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto following the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, and later deported to Auschwitz. During a march to Bergen Belsen she escaped and made her way back to Prague and was eventually sheltered by the resistance.
After the war Heda is reunited with her husband Rudolf Margolius and they begin to get their lives back together. Unfortunately the reign of terror is not over, as the new communist party perpetrates its own wave of terror on its citizens.
Heda is an ordinary person who suffered extraordinary deprivations and her memoirs give us a succinct view of the horrors and hardships suffered by millions . ( )