Hitler, Stalin & I ─ An Oral History

Heda Margolius Kovály (1919–2010), a Czech writer and translator, was born in Prague to Jewish parents. Heda spent the years of the Second World War in a ghetto, Auschwitz and other concentration camps, escaped from a death march, and took part in the Prague uprising against the Nazis in May 1945. After the war Heda worked at various Prague publishing houses as a graphic designer. In 1952, her first husband, Rudolf Margolius (1913–1952), was convicted in the Stalinist Slánský Trial. The 1968 Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia forced Heda into exile in the United States. She translated over two dozen books and her celebrated memoir, Under a Cruel Star, was first published in 1973 and has since been translated into many languages. Her crime novel Innocence appeared in Czech in 1985 and in English in 2015. Heda returned to Prague in 1996 where she died.

Helena Treštíková is a documentary film director born in Prague and studied at the Prague Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts. Since 1974, Helena has made over fifty documentary films mostly on the themes of long term human relationships and was awarded number of prizes including the European Film Academy 2008 – Prix Arte. The film Hitler, Stalin and I, based on her interview with Heda, was first shown on Czech television in 2001 and subsequently received the Festival Award Special Commendation at the 2002 Japan Film Festival; the ELSA award for the best Czech TV documentary film by the Czech Film and Television Academy in 2002, and the Gold Kingfisher award for the best documentary film at the Festival of Czech Films, Plzen in 2003.

Ivan Margolius is an architect, translator and author of memoirs, books and articles on art, architecture, engineering, design and automobile history. Ivan, son of Rudolf and Heda, was born in Prague, where he studied architecture and in London following his arrival to the United Kingdom in 1966. He practiced architecture at Foster and Partners, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Yorke Rosenberg Mardall and collaborated on books with Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Jan Kaplický.