Hitler, Stalin and I

by Heda Margolius Kovály

  The only thing I could do was to write letters incessantly and try to approach people who refused to see me, bar one or two decent friends. It was up to me to write desperate letters to all possible authorities – government officials, the President’s office, the public prosecutor – to everybody I could think of. I wrote to all of them, vowing that Rudolf was an honest man, that he wouldn’t do anything wrong, begging for a just investigation, that I guaranteed everything, and that his friends were very willing to do the same. All those requests had obviously no effect whatsoever. It lasted almost the whole year.

  I found a lawyer, Vladimír Bartoš, and told him I couldn’t pay him, that they took all my money and if they could return some I would pay him to take care of my situation, but mainly, to defend Rudolf. He promised but didn’t do a thing. Only at the end of the year he managed to get the passbook back, so that terrible misery we had been in improved slightly.

  I lost my job at the publishing house, and bad times returned. I couldn’t get anything, despite seeking any work available. Sometimes I found work, but they immediately got an order to kick me out. I gave up trying to find work then and did a bit of designing instead. I had friends who were also graphic artists, and they passed some work along to me, which they submitted under their names and divided the fees accordingly, enabling us to keep our heads above water.

  Finally Milena and Ota found work for me in a machine shop. The shop had punching machines – which no longer exist, but I couldn’t make them work. I am not at all technically minded, and every machine stops as soon as I approach it. I worked there till midnight every day, unable to fulfill my quota.

  It was all turning sour, and I became very ill. But because I was an outcast no doctor would come and treat me. One woman turned up – I had a fever, was in great pain and felt terrible, and she said: “That’s enteritis. The best thing would be to have a bottle of rum brought, and take hot tea with the rum.” So I drank tea with rum. I woke up later that night and saw beads of sweat on my arms, my head was spinning, and I got up and lost consciousness. The girl au pair who lived with me in the flat and helped with cleaning, looked after Ivan and ran errands found me in the morning with a big bump on my head. I had struck it on the radiator when I fell unconscious. She was terrified and ran to the medical center: “You have to do something. I’m afraid to be on my own with her. She’ll die and what would happen then?” The doctor who was sent for said: “That’s one of those spoiled madams. Just wait and see how soon she’ll be out of hospital when they throw her out.”

  In the end they sent me to Bulovka hospital in Prague Libeň. There was a remarkable Doctor Hůlek, who examined me and said: “Dear lady, I can’t even give you an injection. Do you remember those people who came back from the concentration camps? You look the same. I can’t even inject you. You have to recover first. Please call your husband and parents to bring some food here because the meager hospital portions won’t help you much.” There was no option but to tell him I had no such luxury like a husband or parents. Consequently he looked after me with great care. I suffered inflammation of nearly every organ in my body, and it took a very long time for the doctor to put me in some sort of reasonable order.

  One morning, a newspaper vendor, an old limping vixen, came into the ward and started to shout: “Look at those swine, what they’ve done. They must all hang, traitors!” I thought: “Good God, what’s going on?” I took the paper and saw the court proceedings announcement. The names of fourteen people were listed, and eleven of those were reported as being “of Jewish origin.” Among them, obviously, was my husband: “Rudolf Margolius, of Jewish origin.” The indictments were for treason, sabotage and I can’t remember what else. That announcement marked the beginning of the trial of those fourteen people, which lasted eight days. They were all sentenced, and eleven were given the death penalty. I tried desperately to call the lawyer to persuade Rudolf to appeal. He said that he did appeal, but all eleven people sentenced to death were executed when President Gottwald dismissed the appeal.

  Something like that wouldn’t ever have happened in any civilized state. When the defendants testified before the court, I was still in the hospital, and when I read it, obviously it was the greatest shock. I could hardly walk, but I managed to scramble out of bed and make it to the bathroom, where I vomited and lay on the floor. The nurses had to bring me back to bed. The defendants testified every day, and finally the day came when Rudolf was due to take his turn. I overheard one very decent nurse talking to another, saying that the trial must have been a total scam – what all those defendants were saying, that they indicted themselves – that wouldn’t normally happen. To stand in court and admit freely to crimes they had allegedly committed, she said it must have been a great swindle. I managed to talk to her quietly and asked her if she would take me to her room to listen to the radio when Rudolf made his deposition. She was really kind, put me in a wheelchair and took me to her tiny box room. There for the first time since he had been arrested, I heard Rudolf, and I couldn’t recognize his voice. He talked like a machine. I thought that he must be reciting it from memory – there was no intonation. He spoke in a strange voice, as in a trance, and accused himself of unbelievable things – that his parents were enemies and capitalists, and that during the war he was in London where he plotted intrigues against the Soviet Union. The truth was entirely opposite; he was in the concentration camps the entire time. They were the most ludicrous statements. Even today I think he must have been given some injections. I thought he was in some drug induced intoxication; however, recently I found out that those poor people really had to learn their testimony by heart, and when they did, it was embellished further to pile on themselves even more accusations. It was all invented. The whole event was under the supervision of Soviet advisors who were in Czechoslovakia all that time and orchestrated how it should all be done.

  I stopped perceiving what the poor man was saying. The nurse took me back to my bed. There were six women on our ward, and they all behaved kindly toward me. They didn’t speak with me, didn’t ask me questions; they ignored me, and that was exactly what I wanted.

  The next day Doctor Hůlek, to whom I was very grateful, came and said: “I’m very sorry, but I’ve been told to send you home.” I replied: “Doctor Hůlek, please do because I don’t want to be here; I wish to be at home.” He: “But you’re in a very bad state. You’re still very ill, and as a doctor I couldn’t have it on my conscience. But I can’t help it. The management has voted to send you home, and I was ordered to do it.” I asked him: “Could you please arrange for an ambulance to take me?” He said: “I’m very sorry, but I mustn’t.” I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t want to entangle anybody into my terrible situation, and then I remembered our very old friend who had been always very kind to me. I told myself that she wouldn’t be harmed by helping me. I phoned her, and Mrs. Musilová came for me and took me home. From the apartment block entrance I nearly crawled on all my fours, and finally when I reached our flat I was pleased to be home.

  On November 27th, 1952, the verdict came – they convicted all fourteen people in seven days and announced the verdict on the eighth day. As far as I know, if not all of them, then the majority appealed. Their lawyers appealed on their behalf, but despite that, the executions were carried out within a week. It was a demonstration of supreme power. Rudolf’s fate was wholly decided without him, without his knowledge, without him being guilty. He was sentenced to death for something he had never known or done. I consider that very symbolic of that era – a totally unprecedented barbarism.

  When the verdicts were announced, I was still lying in bed and listened to the radio as they named each defendant and his verdict. Then the doorbell rang, and with my remaining strength, I crawled to the door. Rudolf’s best friend, the composer Jan Hanuš – they also served together in the army – stood there. He took me in his arms and carried me to the sofa and talked to me. He was a very devout Catholic, and although I could
n’t understand all of what he said, he was a very charming, noble human being with a very kind voice, and he cheered me up a little.

  Then the phone rang, and it was Bartoš, the lawyer. I said: “Mr. Bartoš, how has this happened?” He said: “But your husband has confessed, hasn’t he?” This was how citizens’ freedoms were safeguarded in front of the judicial court then.

  On December 2nd, 1952, a day before the verdict was to be carried out, I was still lying in bed ill when two or three plainclothes policemen came: “This is the last opportunity you’ll have to talk to your husband, but if you’re sick we’ll leave.” I knew he was convicted, but I didn’t know how quickly the affair would be concluded. I thought the appeal process would take place as requested by our lawyer.

  I shouted at them to wait, that I’d get dressed and go with them. A friend staying with me helped me to put my clothes on. They each took me by the elbow and pushed me along because I could hardly walk. I had been ill since October, and now I was greatly surprised to see snow already. I had no idea what it was like outside.

  We drove to Pankrác prison, and they took me into a small room and told me to wait. I sat there and overheard a woman’s voice next door: “I don’t want to talk to him. He was a traitor; he has deceived us all!” A man’s voice pleaded with her: “Dear lady, your husband must die tomorrow; you have to talk to him.” That illustrates what Communism does to people. I knew who she was. That woman had two children with him and didn’t even have enough consideration for her husband to say: “I’ll talk to him before he dies.” All those emotions had been extinguished in people.

  They took me to a room divided by a double layer of steel netting. I hooked my fingers into the net, and they brought Rudolf to the other side. I could hardly see him through the mesh. I thought: “My God, what must he think seeing me so run down by illness.” Rudolf looked at me and said: “You’re so beautiful. I was so afraid you wouldn’t come.” I said: “Rudolf, what have they done to you if you thought I wouldn’t come?”

  I decided that I mustn’t cry. In the end we smiled at each other. We talked mostly about Ivan. I brought him his photographs and asked the guards to give them to Rudolf. They said: “That’s not permitted.” We were so far apart – I kept on trying to reach him through the net and touch him, but it wasn’t possible. I asked: “Won’t you let us at least hold hands for the last time?” They said: “No, it’s forbidden.”

  Rudolf said he was in a cell with a fellow prisoner also sentenced to death who loved music as much as he did, possibly Vladimír Clementis, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and they managed to whistle the whole Dvořák’s Cello Concerto. That was our most favorite composition. Rudolf was a man who always tried to find, even in concentration camps, some solace, something that would elevate him from the feeling of humiliation and misery. He could always find something that would free us for a moment, especially when we were together for a while. I think that toward the end he managed that even in prison. After his court deposition he told himself: “I’ve sunk so low, as far as I could. Now I’ll think of something else.” That was possibly what kept him strong.

  That was the music?

  Yes, Rudolf played violin respectably, he loved music – especially Dvořák’s Cello Concerto.

  We kept talking, and Rudolf said: “Do you remember how the most important events in my life have occurred on the third or thirteenth. Tomorrow is the third, and I’m 39 years old – 3 times 13 years; and our marriage has lasted 13 years.” I told him it was a very hard 39 years he had lived through, but at least he had a wife who always loved him and believed in him and still believed in him. I think he was pleased. Then they nodded that it was time for him to leave, and he said quickly: “I read a very good book recently. It was called Men of Clear Conscience.” Those were his last words; the last words he ever spoke to me.

  And his last look back at you?

  Rudolf looked very calm; he didn’t look to me poorly treated. The way he looked and how he spoke persuaded me that he fully accepted his fate and didn’t cling to life, because he had realized what a terrible thing he participated in. I had a feeling of serenity from him, almost of lightness, as if he had gotten rid of an enormous burden. Obviously we both pretended. I smiled and pretended that I was at peace with his situation, but that was far from the truth. When he was leaving he looked at me, and I saw in his face all that pain and suffering and the terrible disappointment contained within his being. It is difficult for me to describe such an impression. Perhaps it is something I would rather keep to myself.

  I remained clinging to the net, and they approached me and wanted to help; and in that moment, I thought I wouldn’t let them touch me, and I turned and marched back to the car. They drove me home, and that was the end of that history. They executed Rudolf very early the next morning. He died without a word.

  Margolius family tomb, by chance adjacent to Franz Kafka’s family tomb (left), New Jewish Cemetery, Prague.

  Photo circa 1996. Courtesy Margolius Family Archive.

  XIV

  THE ELEVENTH INTO THE TALLY

  AFTER THE EXECUTION

  Your husband was selected for the Slánský Trial, where apart from him some really problematic people were convicted. What’s your view of this?

  None of the defendants deserved the death penalty. The death penalty shouldn’t ever be considered in human affairs. It mustn’t ever be implemented. Of course there were some people among the defendants who committed criminal offences, and had they lived, sooner or later they would have to confess their misdeeds. I didn’t know any of those people closely and couldn’t vouch for anybody else but Rudolf, who I knew perfectly. Several people who have studied and researched these trials told me that if there were one wholly innocent, blameless person, then it was Rudolf.

  People who are interested in what really happened will find out, for example, that Vladimír Clementis was also a good decent person. Some of them made a very bad impression on me and had bad reputations, but others were on the whole respectable people.

  How did you perceive Slánský?

  I didn’t know Rudolf Slánský either. Rudolf disliked him immensely and as much as he could, tried to avoid meeting him. Rudolf, as far as I know had nothing to do with him because he was only a deputy minister, which in the government hierarchy was a very minor post. For Slánský, who was half-God as Party Secretary General, Rudolf was a very inconsequential player. Rudolf had always condemned Slánský’s actions, and therefore not even in my dreams would I ever connect him with Slánský.

  It was obvious that they needed one more person to complete the group. They were ordered to execute eleven people and possibly couldn’t quickly find any other except Rudolf. That’s how it used to be done. Rudolf was the youngest of them and the only postwar Communist. He never held any Party appointments; he was purely an economist. He provided efficient economic leadership within his department, which brought prosperity for the country as directly encouraged by the Party, but all that was too late. As soon as a person had been arrested, even for absolutely nothing and without cause, he or she was lost.

  Rudolf was by far not the only one condemned. Thousands of people were in hard labor camps mining uranium ore; they were incarcerated and tortured in prisons and concentration camps. And why was that? It was because we had been thrown into the terrible bondage of having our fates decided by the Kremlin. Freedom and justice are the main requirements that, without which, a person can’t live. When you are in a bad situation – you have no money, you’re not healthy – it can be endured and something can be done about it; but when you have no freedom and no rights, then you are doomed.

  Rudolf was the best person I have ever known. He always meant to do the best for people; he never wanted anything for himself, only for others. He wanted to do something good for society, to make people happy, comfortable and satisfied. I still strive to exonerate him fully. In 1963 the verdict was annulled by the High Court. At that time when Commu
nist laws were still in force, the court decided that the verdict was unlawful and refuted Rudolf’s indictment in its entirety. Despite that ruling, the court’s findings have yet to be publicly announced – this has never happened, and no one has ever found out that those people were innocent. After the 1963 annulment, they instigated rehabilitations, which were totally laughable, and I wanted nothing to do with them.

  Today, I again seek to affirm the truth and tell people what has happened in this country, which has always been so beautiful and just.

  Everything was tarnished and trampled on in Czechoslovakia, every good human characteristic and all that people normally longed for: justice, freedom, goodness and human understanding for each other. They destroyed all that. I’m pleased that my son moved abroad. It was very difficult for him. He was on his own as a teenager in a foreign country since 1966. He hadn’t mastered the language yet, but he was free. And as a free person he has grown up.

  From the time of my illness Ivan was taken into care by the former partisan Ruda who lived in Bratislava then. He was the husband of Rudolf’s cousin Marie, and because of that relationship he also lost his job. They had two children of similar age, so Ivan was happy being there. Marie wrote me not to trouble myself about Ivan, that he was singing and playing and was content. During the trial the children played in the living room, and Marie and her mother, Vilemína, Rudolf’s aunt, sat in the kitchen and listened to the proceedings on the radio. When they heard Rudolf’s verdict they cried out. The children continued playing without taking notice, except Ivan, who got up and went to the kitchen and asked: “What’s happened, Auntie?” They calmed him and said: “Don’t worry, Auntie’s a bit unwell.” Ivan said: “I’m glad. I was afraid somebody had died.”