Twentieth Century European Politicization in Context in 'Under a Cruel Star' Kelsey Norris College

Under a Cruel Star illustrates the sudden oppression of war, and what it is like to be a direct victim of an entire country. Heda Margolius Kovaly documents her experiences during the Holocaust. Focusing predominantly on how she survived one nightmare, just to walk into another: “You liberate yourself from direct oppression and you sink into something even worse” (Kovaly 29). She demonstrates how overwhelming the wave of hate and suspicion was that crashed over Europe during the twentieth century.

Kovaly was living in Prague when she was taken by the Nazis and brought to a concentration camp. She was taken with her parents and nephew, who either died in Lodz or Auschwitz. When her encampment was being marched to another, she knew it was her only chance to escape. The concentration camps were heavily guarded: “the whole camp is encircled by a second ring called the “big” or “outer ring of sentry posts,” also with watchtowers every 150 meters” (Smith 363). Hopelessness was the only possible feeling to exist in these sorts of places. They were militarized death camps that politicized life on a severe level. The politicization of Europe gradually increased after World War One. Specifically, in Germany, because of the burden of...