Grete Fischer was born in Prague in 1893 as the
daughter of a Jewish manufacturer. She studied music
and literature at the university, and during the war
worked with Galician refugees. In 1917 she moved to
Berlin where she became an editor in Paul Cassirer's
publishing company, and later with Ullstein. She also
reviewed concerts for the Berliner Bürsen-Kurier from
1922- 1931 as well as for other Berlin newspapers. In
1933 she lost her position as editor. The pages of her
diary are not dated, but we can assume that the entries
about supporting herself by teaching in a music school may refer to that time. In
1934, after a trip to Palestine, she emigrated to London, England where she did
various kinds of work, including broadcasting in German for the BBC. Later,
without ever having had any formal training in the field, she became very suc-
cessful as a teacher of children who were brain damaged or had psychological prob-
lems. She died of cancer in 1977.

Her publications included Palästina, das erlaubte Land, [ Palestine, the
sanctioned Country ], Paris, 1934 under the pseudonym, Josef Amiel, and sev-
eral children's books, articles and pamphlets. Her autobiographical book Dien-
stboten, Brecht und andere Zeitgenossen in Prag, Berlin, London [ Servants, Brecht and other contemporaries ] was published in Freiburg/Br, in
1966, her volume of poetry, Schuld der Gerechten [ The Guilt of the Just]
in Darmstadt in 1974.

As Grete Fischer says in her autobiography, our main source, her aim was
not to tell the story of her life, but to tell of people who passed through her life,
to offer a document of her time. The story of her own life as it emerges in the book
is indeed incomplete; important facts and dates are missing. Nevertheless, it sup-
plies us with what seems to be a fairly accurate picture of Grete as she developed
from childhood until her seventies.

However, I still went to London to fill in some information from her literary
estate andfrom people who knew her. What I encountered there was a room full
of boxes with manuscripts of Grete's published and unpublished writings. By far

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