Her name was Frederica. Frederick or simply Friedl. Friedl Reichler. He met her in 1919 when he was twenty-five and she was only nineteen. Beautiful, sweet Polish Jewess, born in 1900.

He immediately fell in love with her and made her fall in love with him. After some hesitation, he married her. He married her the same week his overbearing and overprotective mother died.

Their relationship had all the elements of a storm. One moment he loved her, the next he hated her. He drove her away, but then returned to her again. He despised and adored her at the same time. He abandoned her for months (his constant excuse was journalistic missions), and then fell at her feet. The next day, before disappearing again, he attacked her: bouts of pathological jealousy disgusted him – and her along with him.

Their mutual friend who met them in Paris said that he “drained her, drained her.”

“He ruined her,” said the friend. A lie, of course, because no one destroys anyone unless the other tacitly allows it to happen. But who could blame her for something so outrageous? She was young, beautiful, cool, smiling and dancing, leaning against his side, looking for something to touch.

He was ruthless with her. Like with yourself. Evil worked like hell.

He was ruthless with her. Like with yourself. Evil worked like hell. She slowly began to lose her smile. She withdrew into herself, suffering from panic attacks. She became asocial, she developed health problems. He began to hallucinate. Nightmares while awake.

Once they diagnosed suicidal tendencies in her behavior. Until the final diagnosis came: schizophrenia. Was it hers? This item is not available for purchase. But did this relationship become a catalyst for mental illness, such as his alcohol addiction? To the point where his teeth start to fall out and his stomach swells up with a liver ready to explode?

He was just as unbearable with his friends, acquaintances and associates. Like his beloved, Afro-Cuban Andrea Bell. She cursed her children for being mixed. And he was jealous of her. And she.

In 1930, Friedl was placed in a psychiatric hospital in Austria. They died a year apart. He preceded her in 1939. She followed her in 1940: the Nazis visited the institution where she was being treated and captured her along with other prisoners. She breathed her last breath in the gas chamber.

It was the tragic love story of Friedl Reichler and her husband, the great writer Josef Roth.