Reflections of Prague: Journeys Through the 20th Century

by Ivan Margolius

Reflections of Prague is the story of how a Czech Jewish family become embroiled in the most tragic and tumultuous episodes of the twentieth century. Through their eyes we see the history of their beloved Prague, a unique European city, and the wider, political forces that tear their lives apart. Their moving story traces the major events, turmoil, oppression and triumphs of Europe through the last hundred years - from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the First World War; from the vibrant artistic and intellectual life of Prague in the times of Kafka, the Capek Brothers and Masaryk to years of hunger in a Polish ghetto and the concentration camps of Hitler; from the tyrannous rule of Stalin to the rekindled hopes of Dubcek and the subsequent Soviet occupation to liberation under Havel. Told from Ivan's perspective, it is a poignant but uplifting tale that tells of life lived with purpose and conviction, in the face of personal suffering and sacrifice.

'A remarkable book. This archetypical story of the twentieth century is intertwined with an almost stream-of-consciousness narrative of the history of the Czechs, of Prague, interspersed with samples of exquisite poetry by great contemporary poets. So the narrative flows like Eliot's sweet Thames full of the debris of tragic lives, of horrors, of moments of beauty and testimonies of love - all against the backdrop of man's inhumanity.' Josef Skvoreck

'A poignant and vivid m moire of a child searching for traces of his father, lost in the murky ideologies of post war Central Europe. An engrossing book.' Sir John Tusa

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470022191
• ISBN13: 9780470022191
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Cruel Things

A highly intelligent son of Prague looks back at the wreckage of his family caused by the forces of first Hitler's Germany and then Stalin's USSR. Ivan Margolius' book is written in quiet, tempered language, yet forcefully describes the human outrages, through a focus on one hard hit Jewish family, committed during the sweep of the last century within a politically turbulent Czechoslovakia. A part of this powerful true story, the state treason trial of the author's father, comes straight out of the anticipatory mind of Franz Kafka. This book deserves readers.

Review of Ivan Margolius' REFLECTIONS OF PRAGUE

This is a tragic memoir of a son whose father was murdered by the Communist regime. The author sets the stage beautifully by giving the history of the Czech nation, the plight of its Jewish population, and the suffering at the hands of the Nazis and Communists. He weaves the story of his family into this history with great skill. As a native Czech who had some similar experiences to those of Ivan Margolius, I particularly appreciated his attention to detail, his accurate and beautiful descriptions of Prague and the Czech countryside, and his use of poetry throughout the book. The reader cannot help but weep for a son who has such deep feelings and who carries with him such deep sorrow for a father whom he knew for only a few very short years. A wonderful book!

"Never fall down!" Mother said...

"Never fall down!" Roughly translated from the Czech refrain that author Ivan Margolius' resilient mother, Heda Margolius Kovaly, would often exclaim when life in the former Czechoslovakia threw their Margolius clan one too many rotten tomatoes. Ivan and Heda, of course, are son and wife to the late Rudolf Margolius, a one-time deputy minister in the former Czechoslovakia's Ministry of Trade. History reveals that on December 3, 1952, Rudolf and ten other falsely-accused -- mostly Jewish -- members of the former Communist government's inner circle were hanged in what has since become known as the "Slansky Affair" or "Slansky Plot." Slansky was a trumped-up list of charges that first Czechoslovak Communist President Klement Gottwald orchestrated against forteen prominent members of his administration. The Slansky Plot was the culmination of a major part of Gottwald's Stalinist-inspired campaign of terror against the citizens of Czechoslovakia. His aim was to smash them into socialist submission, with Czechoslovakia at the time being the most "Western" of all the newly-established "Bloc" countries. "Never fall down" became Ivan Margolius' mantra as he returned more than forty years later to the now-democratic Czech Republic to retrace his father's once-shining career's steps. Ivan's search lead him straight into the former Czechoslovak archives. From there it was where the author was successful in clarifying heaps of missing details that had eluded Ivan Margolius for most of his adult life about the life of his famous father. Until the age of sixteen, Ivan hadn't precisely known the circumstances surrounding his father's passing. Heda, like most of her fellow citizens living under the socialist yoke, dreaded divulging any information about Rudolf Margolius to her lone son, fearful how it might affect his future work and life prospects inside the Communist system. Featuring prominently in this book are letters. For instance, one is an ambiguously-crafted note Rudolf had penned to his young boy, which reveals shades of the inner-agony that Rudolf and his fourteen co-accused must have felt while awaiting their execution under the libels. It had been kept from author by Heda until well into Ivan's teens. Since then, Ivan Margolius' life filled with a burning curiosity to truly know of the circumstances surrounding his father's tragic demise. By then, Ivan was already comfortably settled, living in exile in the British capital, London. It built up until he demanded to know just what had really happened to the man he once called 'Tato', Daddy? Why had Rudolf Margolius been [...] as a "subversive spy" who "had endangered the health of Czechoslovakia's children?" Were the charges laid against Rudolf Margolius even true? Heda knew them to be falsehoods, all, yet Ivan just had to know for himself. What emerged from the author's research was that Rudolf Margolius hardly even knew Rudolf Slansky, one of the Group of Fourteen rounded up in his epony