【2017/21】《Under a Cruel Star》
《Under a Cruel Star: A life in Prague 1941 - 1968》
阅读时间:17年6月3日 - 10日
原版捷克语,我读的英文版本。
题外话,最近读了基本关于二战和冷战的书。之前的【TS读书/13】《布达佩斯往事》 这个也是关于冷战时期的事。虽然发生在不同国家的首都,因为太相似,两本书作为互补,可以了解不少冷战时期苏联的统治。阅读此书的过程中,写了不少的笔记。这里就发布其中的一些英文笔记,基本上没有我个人的观点,只有记录。
The mass deportation of Jews from Prague began in the fall of 1941. Their transport left in October and they had no idea of their destination. She saw the hungry boy who was skeleton with huge eyes and his mother was so thin like a kid. She also saw a dead man lying on the mattress and his swarming body with a myriad of fat white lice.
Later on, they worked in a brickyard in the last of the concentration camp. It was late autumn, they wore nothing but short shifts made of burlap, no shoes, no underwear. They had to wait 2 hours for morning roll call long before dawn, and took another one hour to work on the little train. And half-hour hike to the factory, following 12 hours working, then back to camp, another roll call, a little turnip soup, a slice of bread, and a short restless night. Then another day.
The idea of escape from camp came to her mind when a guard shot another girl. During marching, she and another girl were trying to escape. In one night, she and others were managed to escape, not easier though. She passed cross the boarder, managers to back to Prague, without any paper identification. They escaped but officially their exist totally outside of the law.
The price of life is too expensive. Her escape into life from camp had not work out!
With the help of Russians, Prague was liberated and the war ended. She lost her parents who were murdered in 1944 at Auschwitz. Her husband was able to escape from camp as well. She wanted only quiet life, but.....
German Left, but Russians came. Her husband joined the Communist Party soon.
Later on, her husband was offered the position of cabinet chief in the Ministry of Foreign. At the beginning, he did not want the job. However, the Party convinced him to take the offer.
1948 Czechoslovak coup occured and the border had been closed. Many shops were nationalized. The Soviet Union had prohibited Czechoslovakia from participating in the Marshall Plan.
During the Cold War, they cannot get any information or news from outside, only from Soviet Union. It showed how good they were. By 1951, the atmosphere in Prague was almost as bad as it had been during the war. No one dared to speak out loud, and hardly a week passed without news of someone's arrest.
One day, her husband was arrested. Five men had been authorized to carry out a search of the house. It was difficult time. Especially her living situation. November 20, 1952, the headlines of newspaper was about the trial of Rudolf Slansky. At beginning she did not realize that her husband was involved. After she skimmed down to the list of the accused, there were 14 names. Eleven of them were followed by the note "of Jewish origin", and one of the name was her husband. On November 27, the final verdict came. It was death penalty for her husband.
Two years later, she received the death certificate.
Twenty years later, she found out where the burial place was.
After death of Stalin, her life had some changes as well. She tried so hard to get the announcement of her hunband's innocent. She finally knew how to tell her son what happened to his father. Before he went to school, she changed his last name as his dad last wish. His new schoolmates knew nothing about them. Her heart throbbing when she planed to tell him the truth. He did say nothing and kept avoid his mother for the next few days. Then he came to ask question and everything got better.
After school, her son left to London. He felt he could not remain in a country where such atrocities were silently tolerated and none of his all relatives had died a natural death.
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TSTS
战争啊 多么残酷
无论是Hitler 还是 Stalin
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TSTS引用 @ TS_Eleven @ TS_Eleven 的话:这种关于战争的书最不喜欢看了,人性在战争中泯灭的一点都不剩,可怕
我特别喜欢看 哈哈 我男朋友说我是自虐型的 哭的好伤心 然后边哭边说 书真好看