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Jelinek, Tomas: Theresienstadt, 1943

Drawing of the Theresienstadt ghetto by Tomas Jelinek, born 1935, depicting the city’s houses and the church spire in the main square. Jelinek survived and was liberated in the ghetto in early May 1945.

Historical Background

The Theresienstadt (Terezin in Czech) Ghetto was established in November 24th, 1941. In the beginning only Jews from Bohemia and Moravia were brought there.

From October 1942 Jews from Western Europe – Austria, Germany and from April 1943 also Jews from Holland and Denmark – were deported to Theresienstadt. Leading figures of Czech Jewry, headed by Jacob Edelstein, supported the idea of establishing a ghetto within the territory of the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” as an alternative to deportations to the East. They hoped that this ghetto would provide a kind of shelter for Jews in the expected hard times to come. This illusion was shattered with the start of transports to the East in January 1942 and with the execution of sixteen Jewish prisoners for various transgressions such as smuggling out letters or buying a cake.

The ghetto was established in the fortified town Theresienstadt, built in the 18th century as a garrison. The military barracks and the houses of the civilian population could normally accommodate 7,000 people. At the time of the worst overcrowding, the Nazis incarcerated 58,491 prisoners in the ghetto. In the face of enormous difficulties and hardships, the Jewish leadership succeeded to organize daily life – taking care of education and welfare of children and youth, health, food distribution, work and so on. Although this eased life in the ghetto, it could not prevent hunger and high mortality.
For about four months there was an action to “beautify” the ghetto in preparation for a visit by representatives of the International Red Cross, on June 23rd, 1944. At the same time, transports to the East continued to leave the ghetto, at an accelerated rate. The ghetto existed until liberation in May 1945.

Out of 160,000 prisoners from Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria, Holland, Denmark and other countries that passed through Theresienstadt between 1941 and 1945, 35,409 died in the ghetto from hunger or disease. 88,129 were deported from there to extermination camps and out of these 4,136 survived.
Of the 12,171 Jewish Children born in the period 1928-1945 and sent to the Theresienstadt Ghetto – whose future was uppermost on the mind of the Jewish leadership – 9,001 were deported to extermination camps in the East, of whom 325 children survived.

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Timeline

עליית אדולף היטלר לשלטון
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
הקמת שטח חסות
Establishment of the Protectorate
קבלת החלטה לגבי הקמת גטו טרזיינשטאט
Establishment of the Theresienstadt Ghetto
הגעת יהודים זקנים מגרמניה
Arrival of elder Jews from Germany
הגעת יהודי הולנד ודנמרק
Arrival of Dutch and Danish Jews
שילוחים למחנה המשפחות באושוויץ בירקנאו
Deportation to the Family camp in Birkenau
שחרור הגטו‎
The liberation of the Ghetto
January 30, 1933
March 16, 1939
October 10, 1941
1943
1942
1944
May 8th, 1945

Establishment of the Ghetto

(November 24, 1941 – July 1, 1942)

The team that took part in the initial establishing force (Aufbakommando – AK), young men and skilled workers who volunteered to prepare the ghetto for its future inhabitants, left Prague for Theresienstadt on 24 November 1941 (AKI, consisting of 342 men) and 4 December 1941 (AKII, consisting of 1,000 men). These included many who were active in the Hehalutz youth movement and were selected by Jakob Edelstein, former director of the Palestinaamt (Palestine Office) in Prague, to ensure the ghetto’s Jewish Zionist foundation and form a leadership group. When arriving at Theresienstadt they were shocked. The place was in an extreme state of neglect and lacked basic living conditions. The Nazis harassed the deportees and provided them with no food. The conditions resembled those of a Nazi concentration camp. They were imprisoned in the Sudeten barracks, a dark and empty building with water-slick walls, broken windowpanes, and overflowing toilets. They were only allowed to leave in groups to work for the Germans. Even before the establishing force managed to prepare a residential area, the Nazis began to deport large numbers of Jews to the ghetto. On 30 November and 2 December 1941 two transports were sent to the ghetto from Prague and Brno, each consisting of 1,000 people, mostly women, children, and elderly. The first 3,465 deportees were housed in crowded conditions, sleeping on the floor in seven large halls on the second floor of the Sudeten barracks, originally planned for 500 soldiers. In contradiction of all assurances given, no food was provided and the deportees were dependent on the provisions they had brought with them; most of the time they remained hungry.

The deportees were extremely distressed, causing even political rivals to make every effort to improve the living conditions of the individuals and families. They understood that they must do whatever they can to facilitate sanitary conditions and provide food, as well as obtain mattresses, particularly for the children and the sick, and find a way of dealing with the terrible squalor. Under order of the Germans, on 6 December 1941 the women’s and men’s quarters were separated. Women and children were placed in the Dresden barracks, while the Sudeten barracks were designated for men and boys over 14 only. Once families were no longer living together, the ghetto management was forced to contend with the needs of individuals. All meals for the tens of thousands of ghetto inmates were prepared by kitchen, bakery, and butchery workers, who were also in charge of transporting them to the barracks and buildings. Thrice a day, the entire population of the ghetto received a meal or at least warm liquid – a watery blend defined as potato soup or a dumpling and daily bread ration.

Establishment of the Work Center on 25 December institutionalized the work units. Work duties in the ghetto were first imposed on all men aged 18 to 60 and later extended to all residents, men from age 16 to 60 and women from 18 to 55. A central laundry employed about 250 women in three shifts. Each inmate could hand in about three kilos of underwear to be laundered once every three or four months. Workers employed in unsanitary jobs received additional laundry coupons. The health system, the harsh living conditions in the ghetto – the crowded living quarters, the poor hygiene and the hunger, resulted in a profusion of lice, fleas, and ticks, as well as high morbidity among the ghetto inmates. The ghetto’s health system evolved under the successful organization of Dr. Munk. In February 1942 a “hospital” was established, with 17 sick rooms in six residential buildings, encompassing some 314 beds and 14 treatment rooms.
The principle underlying the design of the ghetto by Edelstein, the first Jewish Elder, was that of “salvation through work”. The Jewish leadership he headed was a Zionist pioneering administration and it managed the ghetto in the format of a shared society, which remained in force throughout the ghetto’s existence.

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Period II: The Mixed Ghetto

(July 1942 - December 1943)

From July 1942, transports of the elderly, sick, disabled, and mentally ill began to arrive at Theresienstadt almost daily – mostly from Germany and Austria. By the end of September 1942, more than 40,000 people had been transported to the ghetto, while 20,000 Czech Jews had been deported to the death camps. The mental state and living conditions of the inmates are hard to describe, but the constantly rising death rate in the ghetto can give some indication of the situation. In 1942 the main victims of the crowding were of course the elderly and the sick. In May 1942 only 15 deaths were recorded, but by September of that year the number of dead had risen to 3,941 a month. A team of inmates would remove the bodies from the funeral house, stack the caskets on burial carts, and lead them to a mass grave beyond the ghetto walls. Beginning in late September, a crematorium was operated at Theresienstadt, with a capacity of 200 bodies a day.

While the dead made their last journey to beyond the city walls, the clatter of wooden-wheeled hearses on the cobblestones echoed throughout the city streets. Hearses had been brought to the ghetto at the instruction of the Nazis from all the Jewish communities eliminated throughout Bohemia and Moravia, to serve as the main means of transportation. Some were left as they had been – black, gilded, embossed – but from most the decorations were removed, and cargo was transported on the bare surfaces.

The crowded city urgently needed means of transport to move large quantities of goods and people from place to place. Thus, the gloomy hearses travelled to and fro over the gutted city streets, loaded with the personal belongings of newly arrived inmates or the elderly, grey-faced and starved, who were transported at times from one residential hall to another to make room for new inmates. Hearses were loaded with potatoes and accompanied by the ghetto police, wearing yellow armbands, and some transported coal to the kitchens, construction materials to German plants, and the large containers sloshing watery soup intended for the elderly, the mentally ill, and the dying who could no longer stand in line and receive their puny share of food in the residential quarters. The second period of the ghetto’s existence was characterized most of all by the arrival of German and Austrian Jews. When the ghetto was established, the Czech Jews had thought that Theresienstadt would be a place of refuge and survival, but once many transports arrived from Germany and Austria in 1942 the deportation rate of Czech Jews eastwards was hastened. According to Daily Order no. 227 from 3 October 1942, a new Jewish Council was established, with Paul Eppstein from Berlin appointed head of the council, while Jakob Edelstein from Prague and Benjamin Murmelstein from Vienna were his deputies. Jakob Edelstein was the first council member to be arrested, in November 1942. He was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there several months later together with his family. It appears that through his arrest, deportation, and murder, the Germans sought to destroy once and for all any naïve hopes cultivated by Czech Jews since the establishment of the ghetto at Theresienstadt.

A routine day of the ghetto’s prisoners would begin in the early hours by standing in line – for the washroom, for the toilets, to receive the bitter beverage that served as a substitute for coffee, before leaving for work. At noon the inmates would stand in line for a meal and they went through this ordeal once again in the evening as well, when returning from their daily work, tired and grimy.

In the residential quarters the inmates received 200 grams of bread per day and tiny rations of sugar and margarine. Even the young, who were employed in hard labor and received more nutritious rations, were constantly hungry. The elderly and those incapable of work were always on the verge of starvation. They waited by the food queues, bent, dragging their feet, holding bowls, tin cans, and old pots, hoping for a ration of lentil soup from inmates who were not dependent on the formal rations. They gathered potato and turnip peels from the garbage cans next to the kitchen. Then, they would prepare and cook these half-rotten remains, arguing and fighting over whose turn it was to use the small oven in the quarters. Despite their desperate attempts, they were ultimately compelled to give in to the hunger.

Beginning from June 1942, the inmates were allowed to leave their quarters. The ghetto inmates became obsessed with social and cultural activities that became an engrossing occupation for both young and old, and sometimes also the sick and the dying. At first, the plays, concerts, and lectures were low quality improvised events, but over time the activities became more varied and many inmates participated in them. Plays were held in the courtyards, in the soot blackened attics, among the roof beams, and in the cellars of the ghetto’s buildings.

In 1942 and 1943 there were three cabarets in the ghetto, Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride” was staged in concert format, the children’s opera “Brundibár” was presented, as well as a series of plays. A series of university-level lectures were given in rooms and attics. There were also Hebrew classes, Torah classes, as well as prayer rituals in cellars and attics.

From July 1942 the children and teens were housed in separate dormitories. They went to school, received vocational training, and in the evenings participated in programs prepared by the youth movements. The Germans knew about the vocational training, but academic studies were forbidden in the ghetto and the teachers had to teach clandestinely. The students were divided into small groups and classes were halted whenever a German came near the dorms. Underlying the innocent front of the children’s work, studies, and athletics on the roof of one of the ghetto’s fortresses, was a desperate attempt to surround them with a protective wall that would keep them from moral decline, from the corruption that was a product of all concentration camps.

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Period III: The Ghetto as Deception

(January 1944 - October 1944)

The third period was characterized by “beautification” of the ghetto. The Nazis were preparing for a visit by a delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross and made extensive efforts to portray the ghetto as a quiet and pleasant place, a type of safe haven for the Jews of central Europe. The entire operation was fraudulent, planned and carried out to impress the delegation with whitewashed houses, flowerbeds, the sight of children playing in the sun and of people strolling to the sound of wind instruments, at the bank, in coffee shops, and in modest but clean residential quarters housing reputable Jews who had been deported to the East.

The delegation had no knowledge of the thousands deported to Auschwitz, did not see the terrible crowding in the ghetto, the hunger rations meted out to the inmates before and after the visit, did not feel the atmosphere of terror and suffering dominating the back yards that were not featured in the well planned visit. The operation was deemed successful. Surprisingly, not even one member of the Red Cross delegation asked to deviate from the carefully prepared route or tried to inspect the interior of the houses, tour the yards, the cellars, or the residential quarters of the elderly and sick. The delegation issued a positive report on the state of the Jews at Theresienstadt.

To further utilize the settings prepared and presented to the delegation, a Nazi propaganda film on Theresienstadt and its inhabitants was filmed. This film, which the Jews imprisoned in the ghetto ironically designated “The Führer gives the Jews a city”, was preserved in the archives. Jews playing soccer in the yard, Jews working in a workshop, watering vegetables in the garden, sipping coffee in a delicatessen, exchanging books at the public library. Their clothes are fairly nice, they are seen smiling, well fed, and aside from the yellow Star of David on their clothes they do not differ from any other people living in regular circumstances in the 1940s.
Once the Nazis had concluded their acts of deception in the ghetto, they commenced transports to the East that considerably diminished the ghetto’s population.

In September and October 1944, the Nazis deported 18,000 individuals from Theresienstadt eastwards in 10 transports. These included children, teens, teachers, counselors, doctors, men and women.

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Period IV: Mourning and Reorganization

(November 1944 - May 1945)

In the aftermath of the transports to the East before and after the “beautification” operation, those who remained at the ghetto were mainly women and men whose spouses were not Jewish, as well as reputable Jewish figures used to refute the rumors regarding a massacre of European Jewry. There were also several children born of mixed marriages, as well as a small group of Danish Jews who enjoyed special status thanks to the firm stance taken by Denmark’s Christian community. In addition, workers employed in the German armaments industry, a small maintenance team, and gardeners and agricultural workers who provided fresh vegetables to SS army bases in the area. On 5 February 1945 a “Train to Freedom” left the ghetto – a transport of 1,200 Jews headed for Switzerland, the result of a Swiss-mediated deal between Himmler and Swiss Jews.

The secret German plot was to gas all the ghetto’s inmates, after gathering them in subterranean caverns within the fortresses. Only the confusion of the last few days prevented execution of this plan.

On 19 April 1945 the SS command announced that the ghetto’s inmates must take in Jews from camps that had been dissolved. The next morning, there were 17,515 Jews at Theresienstadt, and 10 days later there were 29,227. Those arriving from the camps disclosed to the ghetto’s inmates the true fate of those deported from the ghetto eastwards, the truth about the fate of their relatives, their loved ones.

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Period V: Liberation

(May 1945)

On 21 April, a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Paul Dunant, visited Theresienstadt and met with members of the Council of Elders. On that day, Dunant was granted control of Theresienstadt on behalf of the International Committee and Nazi commander Rahm left Theresienstadt.

On 8 May, soldiers of the Red Army arrived, bringing the Nazi control of the city to an end. The Jews in the Theresienstadt ghetto were free. The proportion of survivors among the children, those registered as younger than 15-17 upon their arrival, was relatively large. This may be credited to the Council of Elders; but it may also have been their youthful energy that helped the teens withstand the terrible suffering in the camps.