Norbert Frýd (born Norbert Fried) (21 April 1913 – 18 March 1976) was a Czech writer, journalist and diplomat. He is known mainly for his autobiographical novel Krabice živých (A Box of Lives, 1956), in which he describes his experiences in Nazi concentration camps. During World War II, he was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Dachau-Kaufering concentration camps. Biography Norbert Fried was born in České Budějovice to a family of Jewish merchants. His father was a Czech Jew and his mother came from a German Jewish family. He studied at the German gymnasium in his home town, graduating in 1932. He went on to study the Faculty of Law of the Charles University in Prague. After graduating in 1937 he studied for a doctorate in modern literature at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy. He submitted his thesis on "The Origins of Czech Surrealism" in 1939 but was not awarded his PhD until 1945. In the mid-1930s, he became involved with the "Leftist Front" cultural and political movement in Prague. He was a close collaborator with Emil František Burian, and became friends with various Jewish artists, such as Hanuš Bonn, Robert Guttmannn, Jindřich Heisler, Jiří Orten and Josef Taussig. It was while working at Burian's theatre that his collaborative partnership with the composer Karel Reiner began. Together, they created the farce Mistr Pleticha, based on the French original, Maître Patelin. Reiner composed the music and Frýd wrote the lyrics. In 1936 he began working as a lyricist, editor and script-writer for Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer and RKO Radiofilm. In 1939, when Jews were excluded from public employment, he was forced to work as a manual laborer not allowed to work for anyone outside Prague's Jewish community. In November 1942, Frýd was imprisoned in the ghetto at Theresienstadt, where he became involved in the clandestine cultural life of the community. He wrote a collection of nursery rhymes, Abeceda květovaného koně, which later he and Karel Reiner rearranged into a set of children's songs and choruses that were successfully performed in the ghetto. He also directed the play Esther (with music by Reiner). In Autumn 1944, he was transported to Auschwitz concentration camp, along with all the other artists imprisoned in Theresienstadt. At Auschwitz, he spent several nights sitting (together with thousands of other people) on a concrete floor in block "E2", located on the site of the former Roma camp. Subsequently, he was