“Three forces carved the landscape of my life. Two of them crushed half the world. The third was very small and, actually, invisible. It was a shy little bird hidden inside my rib cage an inch or two above my stomach. Sometimes in the most unexpected moments the bird would wake up, lift its head, and flutter its wing in rapture. Then I too would lift my head because, for that short moment, I would know for certain that love and hope are infinitely more powerful than hate and fury, and that somewhere beyond the line of my horizon there was life indestructible, always triumphant.”
* Heda Margolius Kovály, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941–1968
