Arnold Daghani

1909 1985

Romanian Holocaust survivor (1909-1985)

Arnold Daghani was a Romanian-born Jewish artist and writer and Holocaust survivor. In 1941 he and his wife Anisoara were arrested and sent to the Nazi labor camp of Mykhailivka (Mikhailowka) in Ukraine in 1941. Camp inmates worked on constructing Durchgangsstrasse IV, a major military road. While there Daghani chronicled his experiences in a diary and artwork which he managed to smuggle with himself when he escaped to Budapest in 1943. In 1947 he published these, first in Romanian, Groapa este în livada de visini, later translated into English under the title The Grave is in the Cherry Orchard appearing in ADAM International Review. After the war, he lived in Israel, France, Switzerland, and England.

Works