The Theresienstadt Diaries

The Theresienstadt Diaries, by Pavel Fischl, is published in the UK today. Fischl, later known as Gabriel Dagan, survived both Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, and became an actor, writer and psychotherapist in Israel. His wartime notebooks survived separately, passing between prisoners before being returned to him after the war. Decades later, their rediscovery by his son Michael led to their publication.

Fischl was born in Hradec Králové, Czechoslovakia, in 1922. His parents died before the war, and his siblings escaped from occupied Prague. In 1941, aged nineteen, he was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where he worked, performed in plays and wrote. He was subsequently sent to Auschwitz. After the war, he returned to Prague, studied theatre with E. F. Burian and worked in radio.

In 1949, Fischl fled the communist regime for Israel. Under the name Gabriel Dagan, he worked as an actor, playwright, screenwriter and director. During the 1960s, he studied psychotherapy in New York, and continued practising until his death in 2008.

Before his deportation to Auschwitz, Fischl entrusted his notebooks to a friend. They passed from prisoner to prisoner, eventually reaching a woman who brought them to his door in Prague after the war. In 2023, Michael discovered them while going through his parents’ home. They revealed aspects of his father’s life he had not previously known.

Published by Bokförlaget Stolpe, The Theresienstadt Diaries brings together the diaries and a short novel about Fischl’s experiences in Auschwitz and the subsequent death march. The diary writings cover 1941-1943 and include poems and prose drafts alongside his personal reflections. The English diary edition has introductions by Michael Dagan and the Czech scholar Michaela Rozov, with an afterword by historian Ulf Zander.