Dr Isaak Barasch was born into a Jewish family 1885 in Zloczow – now Zolochiv – in the Ukraine, in what was then Galicia, a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He studied to become a doctor in Lwow and Vienna and served with the Austro-Hungarian army on the Italian front from 1916 to 1918. He died of influenza during the 1918 pandemic. His wartime diary, which was preserved by his family, has been translated into English by Michael Wooff, with an introduction by Dr Barasch’s niece Shulamit Kopf.