Under a Cruel Star: A Life In Prague, 1941-1968

During the night, the young Czech girl has left the group of escapees, but not before giving them navigation advice. The girls are cold, hungry, and incredibly weak, but they are full of determination and strength. Soon, a young Polish woman walks by and offers them help. She invites them to her home, but she is unsure of how to help them further. She encourages them to visit a Czech woman on the other side of the village who should be able to assist them.

The Polish woman, Mrs. Nemcova, welcomes the girls into her home and offers them huge slices of bread. “At that moment,” Heda writes, “everything faded, the whole world stood aside. There was nothing alive in the whole universe but the four of us and that huge, sweet-smelling, wonderful loaf of bread” (23). Mrs. Nemcova then offers advice on how to cross the border. She tells them that tonight, a party at the local pub guarantees that “by ten o’clock all the policemen would be drunk” (23).

Heda, Hanka, and two other girls, Zuzka and Mana, sneak into the darkness that night. They walk painfully, barefoot, through the snow, so that they will not lose their shoes in the dark, and they cross the border.