Theresienstadt 1943-1944

With notes from the diary of her father, Otto Pollak, 1943-1945
Edited by Hannelore Brenner

All rights reserved. © Helga Pollak-Kinsky, Vienna and Hannelore Brenner Wonschick, Berlin

"A piece of dramatically told history”, wrote Gottfried Wagner in Die Presse, Vienna, in one of the first reviews of the book ‘The Girls of Room 28’. “The diary of the young Viennese girl Helga Pollak must unquestionably be mentioned in the same breath as Anne Frank's diary.”

Helga wrote her diary when she was 13 and 14 years old. It is at the heart of the book ‘The Girls of Room 28’, published in German (2004) and English (2009). Yet Helga’s diary still bears many undiscovered treasures. Originally written in Czech, it is now available for publication in full for the first time, in both German and English versions.

Reading Helga’s diary, sharing her thoughts and her experiences as a young prisoner in the Nazi ghetto of Theresienstadt, does indeed bring to mind Anne Frank, who was transported from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen on 28 October 1944 - most probably on the very same day when Helga, who had been sent from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz on 23 October 1944, survived the life-or-death Auschwitz selection and was sent to a factory in Nazi Germany to work as a forced labourer.

For decades neither Helga nor her friends, who survived the Nazi camp system as young girls, spoke of their common past. Only in the last years have documents and memoirs begun to appear. Many of Helga’s wartime entries in her diary have opened up her fellow survivors’ own memories, making it possible for their all their stories to be told.

Whenever Helga reads from her diary – and we had been invited many times in the recent years to tell her and her friend’s story - the audience is captivated, gladly allowing her gentle voice to transport them back to her childhood years in the Theresienstadt ghetto. ‘Helga’s Diary’ has proved itself to be equally engrossing theatre. It has been put on stage a number of times in various forms with a varied cast – actors, young people, artists – such as the Berlin ensemble Winfried Radeke, Maria Thomaschke und Andreas Jocksch (www.zwockhaus.de) with songs of the Theresienstadt Cabaret.

I have arranged various adaptations for theatrical uses. Should you be interested in performing this valuable eye-witness account or get more information, please contact us.