When Stefan Zweig resumed keeping a diary in September 1912 after a break, he noted: "The reason - I just felt while rereading an earlier entry how dull, how dangerous, how sickly dull my memory has become." Nearly thirty years later, he wrote on the same topic in the introduction to his autobiography 'The World of Yesterday': "... I do not see our memory as merely an element that randomly retains 'one' and randomly loses 'the other,' but as a knowledgeable organizing and wisely eliminating force." Between these two remarks lies the life lived during difficult times of a person acutely aware of the inner weight of his being, which is vividly reflected in the present diaries.