Hitler, Stalin and I: An Oral History

by Ivan Margolius (Translator), Heda Margolius Kovály (Author), Helena Tre?tíková (Editor)

New
Paperback
2018
$14.27

Heda Margolius Kov ly (1919-2010) was a renowned Czech writer and translator born to Jewish parents. Her bestselling memoir, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968 has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her crime novel Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Street--based on her own experiences living under Stalinist oppression--was named an NPR Best Book in 2015.
In the tradition of Studs Terkel, Hitler, Stalin and I is based on interviews between Kov ly and award-winning filmmaker Helena Trest kov . In it, Kov ly recounts her family history in Czechoslovakia, starving in the deprivations of Lodz 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 Sl nsky Trial and executed for treason. Remarkably, Kov ly, 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.
Heda had an enormous talent for expressing herself. She spoke with precision and was descriptive and witty in places. I admired her attitude and composure, even after she had such extremely difficult experiences. Nazism and Communism afflicted Heda's life directly with maximum intensity. Nevertheless, she remained an optimist.
Helena Trest kov has made over fifty documentary films. Hitler, Stalin and I has garnered several awards in the Czech Republic and Japan.

PRAISE FOR KOVALY'S INNOCENCE

A luminous testament from a dark time, Innocence is at once a clever homage to Raymond Chandler, and a portrait of a city - Prague - caught and held fast in a state of Kafkaesque paranoia. Only a great survivor could have written such a book.
- John Banville

Innocence is an extraordinary novel ... in 1985, Kov ly produced a remarkable work of art with the intrigue of a spy puzzle, the irony of a political fable, the shrewdness of a novel of manners, and the toughness of a hard-boiled murder mystery ... Just as few will anticipate the many surprises and artful turns of Innocence, a book sure to dazzle and please a great many readers.
- Tom Nolan, The Best New Mysteries, The Wall Street Journal

Kov ly's skills as a mystery writer shines, as she uses suspense, hints, and suggestions to literally play with the reader's mind ... Innocence is an excellent novel for readers who are up for a challenging, intelligent, and complex story - one that paints a masterful picture of a bleak, Kafkaesque, and highly intriguing time, place, and cast of characters.
- The New York Journal of Books

Although not out of love for Hegel, Heda Margolius Kov ly makes a very Hegelian point: actions, as Hegel tells us in the section on Antigone in Phenomenology of Spirit - even seemingly small, meaningless actions - always reach beyond their intent; and the impossibility of foreseeing how the consequences will ripple outwards does not absolve us of guilt. As for innocence, the woman who went to hell twice wants her readers to know that there is no such thing.
- The Times Literary Supplement

Synopsis

Heda Margolius Kov ly (1919-2010) was a renowned Czech writer and translator born to Jewish parents. Her bestselling memoir, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968 has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her crime novel Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Street--based on her own experiences living under Stalinist oppression--was named an NPR Best Book in 2015.

In the tradition of Studs Terkel, Hitler, Stalin and I is based on interviews between Kov ly and award-winning filmmaker Helena Trest kov . In it, Kov ly recounts her family history in Czechoslovakia, starving in the deprivations of Lodz 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 Sl nsky Trial and executed for treason. Remarkably, Kov ly, 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.

Heda had an enormous talent for expressing herself. She spoke with precision and was descriptive and witty in places. I admired her attitude and composure, even after she had such extremely difficult experiences. Nazism and Communism afflicted Heda's life directly with maximum intensity. Nevertheless, she remained an optimist.

Helena Trest kov has made over fifty documentary films. Hitler, Stalin and I has garnered several awards in the Czech Republic and Japan.

PRAISE FOR KOVALY'S INNOCENCE

A luminous testament from a dark time, Innocence is at once a clever homage to Raymond Chandler, and a portrait of a city - Prague - caught and held fast in a state of Kafkaesque paranoia. Only a great survivor could have written such a book.
- John Banville

Innocence is an extraordinary novel ... in 1985, Kov ly produced a remarkable work of art with the intrigue of a spy puzzle, the irony of a political fable, the shrewdness of a novel of manners, and the toughness of a hard-boiled murder mystery ... Just as few will anticipate the many surprises and artful turns of Innocence, a book sure to dazzle and please a great many readers.
- Tom Nolan, The Best New Mysteries, The Wall Street Journal

Kov ly's skills as a mystery writer shines, as she uses suspense, hints, and suggestions to literally play with the reader's mind ... Innocence is an excellent novel for readers who are up for a challenging, intelligent, and complex story - one that paints a masterful picture of a bleak, Kafkaesque, and highly intriguing time, place, and cast of characters.
- The New York Journal of Books

Although not out of love for Hegel, Heda Margolius Kov ly makes a very Hegelian point: actions, as Hegel tells us in the section on Antigone in Phenomenology of Spirit - even seemingly small, meaningless actions - always reach beyond their intent; and the impossibility of foreseeing how the consequences will ripple outwards does not absolve us of guilt. As for innocence, the woman who went to hell twice wants her readers to know that there is no such thing.
- The Times Literary Supplement

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Publisher: DoppelHouse Press
Published: 01 Mar 2018
ISBN 10: 0997818476
ISBN 13: 9780997818475
Book Overview:

Ivan Margolius (son of the author and translator of this edition) will be available for media interviews

Promotion at Jewish Book Week in London (we are pursuing an appearance there by Ivan Margolius)

Promotion through Jewish Book Council and Jewish Book Festivals

Marketing directly to book clubs

Book launch in cooperation with Czech embassies in both London and New York

Radio promotions in both the United States and the UK

Pursuing excerpts in The Nation, The Atlantic, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, as well as various other venues

Media Reviews

Trest kov 's interview and chilling newsreel footage of atrocities bring Margolius-Kov ly's story to life. Her combination of determination and luck renders her almost matter-of-factly told tale extraordinary. [...] In Margolius-Kov ly (who penned the 1997 memoir Under a Cruel Star: Life in Prague 1941-1968), she's found a composed, eloquent yet spunky subject whose quietly upbeat nature is inspirational and infectious.--Eddie Cockrell Variety
In today's political climate of rising extremist ideologies and nationalist tendencies, a new book, Hitler, Stalin and I, is an oral history that examines persecutions rooted in strong political rhetoric of exclusion. Czech author and Holocaust survivor, Heda Margolius Kov ly [... gives] a panoramic view of life-long survival in the face of despair and violence, while retaining optimism and faith in the better angels of human nature.
- Frank Shatz, former correspondent for the Hungarian News Agency--The Virginia Gazette

Author Bio

Heda Margolius Kov ly (1919-2010), a Czech writer and translator, was born in Prague to Jewish parents. Heda spent the years of the Second World War in a ghetto, Auschwitz and other concentration camps, escaped from a death march, and took part in the Prague uprising against the Nazis in May 1945. After the war Heda worked at various Prague publishing houses as a graphic designer. In 1952, her first husband, Rudolf Margolius (1913-1952), was convicted in the Stalinist Sl nsk Trial. The 1968 Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia forced Heda into exile in the United States. She translated over two dozen books and her celebrated memoir, Under a Cruel Star, was first published in 1973 and has since been translated into many languages. Her crime novel Innocence appeared in Czech in 1985 and in English in 2015. Heda returned to Prague in 1996 where she died.

Helena Trest kov is a documentary film director born in Prague and studied at the Prague Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts. Since 1974, Helena has made over fifty documentary films mostly on the themes of long term human relationships and was awarded number of prizes including the European Film Academy 2008 - Prix Arte. The film Hitler, Stalin and I, based on her interview with Heda, was first shown on Czech television in 2001 and subsequently received the Festival Award Special Commendation at the 2002 Japan Film Festival; the ELSA award for the best Czech TV documentary film by the Czech Film and Television Academy in 2002, and the Gold Kingfisher award for the best documentary film at the Festival of Czech Films, Plzen in 2003.

Ivan Margolius is an architect, translator and author of memoirs, books and articles on art, architecture, engineering, design and automobile history. Ivan, son of Rudolf and Heda, was born in Prague, where he studied architecture and in London following his arrival to the United Kingdom in 1966. He practiced architecture at Foster and Partners, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Yorke Rosenberg Mardall and collaborated on books with Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Jan Kaplick .