Ivan Margolius was 5 years old when his father, Rudolf Margolius, a concentration-camp survivor and deputy minister, was convicted of anti-state conspiracy in the infamous Slánský trial and executed in 1952 with 10 other government officials.
In his book Reflections of Prague: Journeys Through the 20th Century, the son refracts Czechoslovak history through the prism of his family’s fate, from the prosperous, democratic 1930s through the Nazi occupation, the rise of communism and the Stalinist show trials. Published last year in the UK, where Margolius, now a successful architect, moved in 1966, it was recently released in Czech as Praha za zrcadlem and became an instant best-seller here. It has also been optioned and is being adapted for a feature film, Margolius says.
In an e-mail interview with the Prague Daily Monitor, Margolius talked about revisiting his family’s story and assessed the country’s relationship with its recent past.
Your mother also wrote a book about the family’s life and your father’s fate, Under a Cruel Star. What prompted you to write yours? What did you want to add to the story?
The wives of the accused wrote the stories of their lives, but the lives of their children and how they suffered during the 1950s was forgotten and not examined. I am the first child of the accused in the Slánský trial to attempt to tell my story from my point of view. Our mothers had very hard lives, but at least before the Second World War they lived through happier times. Their children’s lives were already ruined from the early years by the loss of their fathers and the subsequent ostracising by their young friends, the general public and the [Communist] Party and state institutions.
Another prompt for the book was the apparent misinformation and lack of knowledge [among] young Czech people today. A young newspaperman wrote me five years ago in [effect] that he did not know the detailed story of my father but because he had a high position in the government and was a Communist he deserved his sentence. Such appalling reactions and ignorance, I felt, had to be corrected. My mother’s story is a fragment of our family history dealing with the 1941-68 period only and I tried to give a broader picture, 100 years of history. That is what many readers of my mother’s book were requesting after reading hers.
Why did your father join the Communist Party after World War II, and why do you believe he was implicated by the party in the early 1950s along with the other Slánský defendants?
My father was not interested in politics before the war; he travelled as a student through Western Europe, the United States and Middle East. After the war, having miraculously survived the transports, Lodz Ghetto and the concentration camps and suffered the loss of his parents and relatives, the euphoria of the Red Army victory and the memory of the Munich betrayal inevitably turned his interest towards the Soviet Union as the guardian of the survival of the post-war Czechoslovak state. He decided that his role was to help rebuild the country based on a classless system. He was also encouraged by the exemplary attitude of the Communists during the war fighting the Nazis and helping fellow concentration-camp prisoners.
Careful studies of the trial will have to be made to find all the proper causes for the selection of the accused, but it appears that my father may have been chosen because he headed the section of the Ministry of Foreign Trade with the capitalist countries rather than supporting trade with the USSR. In his job he dealt with a large amount of money, which would affect the view of general public if his actions were construed as being traitorous. This situation was exploited by Soviet advisors and the state security in preparation for the trial.
What do you recall about the period when your father worked for the government? Do you remember the atmosphere at home?
My father worked long hours, was overworked. There were not many men of similar abilities and he had to work harder to compensate for that, and therefore he was always late coming home from the ministry. The atmosphere at home was strained; my mother did not like the deep involvement and dedication my father had [to his position]. Rudolf always defended his actions, saying it was his duty to do his utmost to help the nation after the devastation of the war and all the suffering. My mother endeavoured to persuade him to leave his job; Rudolf tried but was ordered to carry on by the Party. There was not anyone there who could do his job better. I spent very little time with him, and because of that, what I lived through I remember, and I try to treasure and keep my memory of him alive.
What was your reaction to the recent conviction of Ludmila Brožová-Polednová, the prosecutor in the Communist show trial of Milada Horáková?
Generally I am slightly dismayed by how much interest there is in the Czech Republic in the non-Communist victims, [as in] the Horáková trial. About the Slánský trial, because it involved Communist officials and those are all wrongly perceived as villains, there is hardly any mention. All the accused are perceived as a single bloc and no distinction is made between the real problematic figures of Slánský, Reicin and Šváb as opposed to the decent people involved, such as Clementis, Frejka or my father.
Ludmila Brožová-Polednová is obviously guilty, but why was her case not examined earlier?
An 86-year-old woman cannot defend herself, and it is rather cowardly to tackle her case now. My mother asked for the Slánský trial to be re-examined in the early 1990s while one of the prosecutors was still alive. The various ministries dragged out the procedures on purpose until the person died. This shows the difference [between] how the Communist and non-Communist victims are being perceived and their cases handled in the Czech Republic.
What do you think of the state of Czech democracy now, with the country having just celebrated 18 years since the fall of communism? Do you have a message for young people in the country now?
There is much more to be done. The gate of freedom has only just opened and it will be many years before the politics, culture and experience of democracy is fully perceived. The Czechs suffered in occupation for many centuries and for such a nation it must take generations to fully recover. It is important not to be shy about recent history; the young especially have to learn how their parents lived 50 years ago and what they did and why. Brushing unpleasant things under the carpet will not help. The nation has to cleanse itself of all the wrongdoing. When that is done it will be easier to look forward. The suffering of all the past victims and their families, regardless of their political affiliations, deserve this approach and the nation’s understanding.
