49 pages • 1 hour read
Heda Margolius KovályUnder a Cruel Star: A Life In Prague, 1941-1968
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1973A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
On November 20, 1952, Heda is still in the hospital, and news of Rudolf’s trial is on the front page of the newspaper. The trial concerns the “conspiracy” of a man named Rudolf Slánský. Slánský, the general secretary of Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party, has been accused of high treason. He was arrested the year before, along with thirteen other government leaders, Rudolf among them. Eleven of the fourteen accused are of Jewish origin. Many of the nurses loudly exclaim that the men involved should be hung.
Heda finds out that many of the accused have admitted to their crimes and that their families have publicly requested harsh sentences. On the fifth day of the trial, Rudolf testifies. Heda convinces a nurse to let her listen to the trial’s broadcast that night, and Heda hears Rudolf’s voice for the first time in nearly a year.
Rudolf’s voice sounds unfamiliar, and he speaks words he has memorized in “an odd, tense, monotonous voice” (140). Rudolf falsely confesses to having accepted bribes and participated in a far-reaching imperialist conspiracy against the Republic.
The next day, Heda is discharged from the hospital against the doctor’s orders. She has no coat and no one to pick her up. Finally, an old friend from the publishing house brings her a coat and picks her up in a taxi. On November 27, only a week after the trial began, all the defendants are sentenced to death. The news is devastating.
Chapter 14 Summary
When Heda learns of Rudolf’s sentence, she is lying on Ivan’s bed. Ivan is still in the countryside with Marie. Soon, the doorbell rings, but she cannot move. Eventually, she crawls to the door, still weak from her illness and the premature discharge from the hospital. Her caller is Pavel Eisler. Soon, Rudolf’s friend, the composer Jan Hanus, also arrives. They bring Heda back to her bed and sit with her, soothing her with talk. Heda remains dazed in her bedroom for a week.
On December 2nd, two men come to the apartment and tell Heda that she has one last chance to speak with her husband before his execution. She is taken to the courthouse in Pankrac to meet with Rudolf. When she sees him, she witnesses “no despair, no fear, only a strange, distant calm…the calm a man finds only at the very bottom of suffering” (145).
He tells Heda she is beautiful. He asks her to talk about their son. He instructs her to change Ivan’s name so that Ivan will not be judged. He instructs Heda to find Ivan “a new father” (147). He tells her he has read a book while imprisoned called Men of Clear Conscience. When their time ends, Heda leaves, heartbroken. She spends several weeks in bed, suffering and ill. A new doctor prescribes her a different medicine, and her health begins to improve. The community, however, still shuns her, and doctors treat her only reluctantly. Antisemitism is on the rise. Marie brings Ivan back from the country, and Heda tells him that his father has died.
Chapter 15 Summary
Heda travels to the police precinct to have the status changed on her identity card to Widowed. She is instructed to travel to the National Committee for a death certificate to prove her status. They cannot help her, so she must travel to the Central National Committee. She finds out that there has been no coroner’s report for the recent executions. She wonders if Rudolf is somehow still alive.
Two years later, she finally receives the death certificate. She learns that Rudolf was hanged and then cremated. The ashes were scattered on a snowy road, under the car wheels of government agents.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
After Rudolf and the others are arrested, all the men admit to the charged crimes, even though they are innocent. The contradictory nature of their confession illuminates the danger of Ideology as a Means of Legitimating Power. Behind all the Party’s declarations of brotherhood and solidarity was the constant threat of state violence. Heda explores this theme further when she demonstrates that even the family members of the accused ask for harsh sentences, and young children beg that their fathers receive swift punishment. These incidents of familial betrayal speak to the scope of Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party. Under the rule of a government that could imprison and execute citizens for an act as minor as filing a petition, the citizens of Prague were effectively terrorized into betraying their loved ones.
When Rudolf speaks his confession in court, Heda knows immediately that he has memorized a lie and that his words are false. She understands that truth has no place in the trial: The judges are working in cooperation with the Party, and they would have almost certainly rendered a guilty verdict against Rudolf no matter his claims. The purpose of the trial is not to discover the truth but to legitimate a falsehood. This recognition plunges Heda into deep despair, as she realizes that there is no effective way to push back against the Party’s version of events.
After Rudolf’s false confession, he is sentenced to death, and yet again, Heda finds herself isolated in her heartbreak. The absence of nature imagery during these difficult episodes illuminates the darkness of this time for Heda; the cold utilitarian spaces of her hospital room and the courthouse where Heda meets with Rudolf for the final time contrast with the warmth of the natural environment where Heda most often finds relief from her pain.
