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#2024年财女阅读/读书笔记打卡

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【2017/21】《Under a Cruel Star》

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TS   TS 2017-07-11 18:33 阅读(3260)

《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。


布拉格,一个令人向往的城市。曾经的布拉格也经历了很多伤痕。此书作者是捷克著名女作家,翻译家。1919-2010年。她出生于布拉格一个富商犹太人家庭。德国在1939年入侵捷克斯洛伐克后的两年,她和父母以及新婚丈夫Rudolf Margolius被送到波兰Lodz Ghetto犹太人区。10万多名在犹太人区的不是被杀死就是被饿死,剩下的幸存者被送去了Auschwitz。她侥幸活了下来,然后被送去了Christianstadt做劳役。她的父母被送去了毒气室。1945年,他们的集中营被撤空,在行程中,她成功了逃脱回到了布拉格。可是朋友们都不欢迎她,大家都害怕被牵连。战争结束后,她丈夫在Auschwitz和Dachau集中营中活了下来,和她在布拉格团聚。然后在苏联占领布拉格期间,她丈夫加入了共产党。斯大林净化东欧期间,如同匈牙利的秘密警察,布拉格也有大量的这种人。她丈夫被抓走了,被污蔑为Rudolf slansky trial中的叛国人士,被执行了死刑。她后来二次结婚,生活渐渐好起来,可是68年的俄国红军入侵,使得她不得不离开布拉格。后来和丈夫定居在波士顿。1996年两人回到布拉格定居。


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。 



Three forces carved the landscape of her life.
1. Adolf Hitler
2. Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin
3. The little bird, third force, kept her life to tell the story

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.


She thought that once she arrived in Prague, everything would be fine. However, everything was changed during years of the German occupation.  Friends and relatives, no one were willing to help. Everyone was scared. There were people got murdered just because they helped the escapers like her.
No friends can help her, even they want to, but.......

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.


At daybreak on August 21, Russians invaded Prague. It seemed like back to fifties...
In September, the invaders were still in full strength at the airports. She boarded a train to leave the country.


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