Theresienstadt Concentration Camp

Different from the "concentration camps" that the Nazis developed for forced labor and/or as part of the Final Solution, Theresienstadt constituted its own unique model. It was designed as a holding ground for three German Jewish populations: people over 65; both disabled German-Jewish veterans of World War I and those who had earned an Iron Cross; and, later, artists and intellectuals of some distinction. These populations retained the humanitarian interest of broad, loosely defined-constituencies whom the Germans sought to placate. In a conversation with Italy’s dictator and wartime ally Benito Mussolini, for example, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler described Thereseinstadt as a kind of retirement community where elderly Jews would continue receiving their pensions and other benefits. Theresienstadt, harsh as conditions actually were, functioned as a public relations veil for even more horrific Nazi operations. Finally, internees bestowed a legacy because of the positive lifestyle they created despite these and other hardships.

Background

Known as Terezín in Czech, Theresienstadt is situated at the confluence of the Eger and Elbe Rivers less than one mile southeast of Litomerice and 90 miles from the capital, Prague. Emperor Joseph II constructed a fort there between 1780 and 1790, naming it for his mother, the Empress Maria Theresa. Transformed into a garrison during the nineteenth century, it held several famous prisoners: the Greek revolutionary Demetrius Ypsilanti and the Bosnian nationalist Gavrilo Princip, who, in assassinating Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, elevated tensions leading to World War I. Terezín endured as a military base, housing both soldiers and their suppliers until the World War II.

Germany invaded Czechoslovakia during October 1938 and on March 15, 1939, united the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia as a "protectorate." At the time of Nazi incursion, Terezín numbered 3,700 people, ten Jewish families among them. Two and one-half years lapsed before Theresienstadt assumed its role as a population-specific center, but once the decision was made, the site was prepared and populated by December, 1941. The Conference of Wannsee, a meeting of senior German officials charged with enacting the mass annihilation of European Jewry, occurred on January 20, 1942. Theresienstadt camp subsequently accepted a more operational role as transport center for Jews on their way to other camps.

The camp’s population peaked during September 1942. Fifty-three thousand people jammed into 150 square yards, translating to a density of 2.9 square yards/person. Choked quarters, transient movement, limited rations, and many residents’ advancing ages left Theresiestadt vulnerable to epidemics, and 15,891 perished of disease during 1942.

Tales of death camps spread throughout Europe at around the same time. The allied governments and King Christian X of Denmark requested Red Cross inspections of Theresienstadt. With advance warning, however, the overseers embarked on public works—and public relations. They refurbished the historic fort, seeded parks, dedicated a café and cultural center, and prepared media material and responses to likely inquiries. After the Red Cross visits, the residents interviewed often were sent to death camps, with the Nazis usually absolved.

All told, more than 155,000 Jews passed through Theresienstadt. Some 35,440 died there and another 88,000 were deported to be murdered. Survivors from other camps gathered as the German army collapsed. The Soviets liberated Theresienstadt on May 9–10, 1945. A museum was erected there by the Czech Republic in 1989.

Overview

Theresienstadt was most often called the "camp-ghetto." When the Nazis marched into cities before the Final Solution was fully operationalized, they herded Jews in dense, isolated urban quarters where they would be enslaved, murdered, or eventually deported to the camps. Theresienstadt’s organization was superficially similar: SS at the top; Czech policy officers to maintain daily order; and, an appointed Ältestenrat or "Council of Elders" handling municipal services, organizing work crews, and making related decisions. Operating funds included assets seized from the Jewish communities of Prague and Berlin. (This provides an explanation for Theresienstadt’s 60,000-volume library). Appointed by SS Lieutenant Colonel Eichman, the first two heads (Judenälteste) of the Council, Jacob Edelstein and Paul Eppstein, served no more than fourteen months each and later were murdered.

Yet, the formal development of community—education for children, the designation of a synagogue, a cultural life generally—occurred because the occupiers sometimes ignored their creation and/or, when necessary, purposefully encouraged these activities for their own propaganda purposes. By 1944, the Council of Elders engaged representatives from all over Europe (Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Holland, and Denmark) contributing a cosmopolitanism different from the standard ghetto. One member was the rabbi-theologian Leo Baeck. The cultural institute that bears his name describes his philosophy as the "intersection between rational ethics and the personal experience of the divine." An untiring activist, too, he presided over a pre-war coalition of German-Jewish organizations seeking to formulate a unified response to the conditions deteriorating around them—and, subsequently, helping their compatriots leave the country. Baeck remained in Germany despite offers of assistance. Deported to Theresienstadt with his family in 1943, he is said to have talked religion and philosophy while harnessed to a garbage cart. A tree that he reportedly planted in honor of the Jewish holiday Tu B’Shevat remains on the grounds. Leo Baeck left Theresienstadt as a 72-year-old survivor—with a manuscript in progress.

One can readily find lists of the artists, musicians, playwrights, and writers who inhabited the camp-ghetto. Their collective output was marvelous. The camp was home to an amateur theater group, incidentally headed by Shakespeare’s German translator, Eric Saudek. Professional pianist Gideon Kline arranged Czech, Polish, Russian, and Hebrew folksongs, inspiring rehearsed choral performances. The children’s opera Brundibár, a fairy tale about family love and severe deprivation by prisoner Hans Krása, was staged fifty-five times. And over 2,300 public lectures were delivered.

While partially designed for older Jews, the camp-ghetto spiritually benefitted from the young. By one count, some 250 were born there. Orphans from other camps occasionally found their way to Theresienstadt, as was the case with 1,196 children from Bialystok. Altogether, as many as 15,000 entered and exited the compound. While formal education was forbidden, resident teacher-artists pursued informal methods, classroom curricula, and homework exercises circulated to parents. Older students resided in dormitory structures, where their creative talents could be nurtured.

A lasting legacy of this symbiosis is the book I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from the Terezín Concentration Camp, 1942–1944. When the horrors of the Holocaust were first revealed, few could discuss them. The book helped to shake the silence beginning in the 1960s and early 1970s. It was most recently reissued in 1994 with a foreword by Chaim Potok and an afterword by Vaclav Havel.

Bibliography

Braude, Sandra. "Life and Culture in Terezín," Jewish Affairs 50 1 (1995): 12–17. Print.

"Concentration/Transit Camp for German and Austrian Jews." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2014. Web. 2 July 2015.

"Cultural Life." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2014. Web. 2 July 2015.

"Establishment." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2014. Web. 2 July 2015.

Kulka, Otto Dov, and Ruth Bondi. "Theresienstadt." Encyclopedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. 2nd ed., Vol. 19. Detroit: Macmillan, 2007. 701–703. Print.

Leo Baeck Institute. "About Leo Baeck." lbi.org. n.d. Web. 2 July 2015.

Lerner, Zdenek. Ghetto Theresienstadt. New York: Fertig, 1983. Print.

"‘Retirement Settlement’ for German and Austrian Jews." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2014. Web. 2 July 2015.

Wachsmann, Nikolaus. KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: Farrar, 2015. Print.

Yad Vashem World Center for Holocaust Research. "The Ghettos: Theresienstadt." Yad Vashem, 2015. Web. 2 July 2015.