Theresienstadt

   The Nazi plan to establish a ghetto in Theresienstadt, located in northwestern Czechoslovakia, is first mentioned in a document dated 10 October 1941. The ghetto was opened on 24 November 1941, and following the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, Reinhard Heydrich ordered that all Reich Jews over the age of 65 be interned in Theresienstadt and be allowed to die a natural death. Subsequently, Jewish war veterans who were disabled or decorated with the Iron Cross First Class were added to the list. Heydrich was also careful to add “prominent Jews” to the group, lest they be missed and questions be raised about their whereabouts. Although committed to the objective of the Final Solution, Heydrich did not regard elderly Jews as a threat to Germany, and by sending them to an “old age ghetto,” he could perpetuate the hoax that Jews were being resettled. The inclusion of Jewish war veterans appeased the leadership of the German army, which took an interest in the fate of Jewish war veterans, inasmuch as they had fought for Germany and deserved some consideration. German Jews, however, were not alone in being deported to Theresienstadt. The Germans also deported Jews from Central and Western Europe to the ghetto.

   By September 1942, there were 53,000 internees in Theresienstadt, and by mid-1943, 90 percent of the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia (75,500) and nearly all of the Jews left in Germany, some 42,000, including their leader, Rabbi Leo Baeck, were deported to the ghetto. Subsequently, the ghetto included 15,000 Jews from Austria, 5,000 Jews from the Netherlands, and 500 from Denmark. Beginning in January 1942, Jews were deported from the ghetto to Auschwitz and Treblinka. Under Adolf Eichmann’s direction, the ghetto was allowed an inordinate variety of cultural and educational activities. Primed to disguise its real purpose, the Schutzstaffel (SS) encouraged artists, writers, and scholars to contribute to a number of cultural programs and events, which included several orchestras, an opera, a theater group, and a cabaret. The ghetto also included a 60,000-volume library as well as weekly lectures and concerts. At the end of 1943, when news of the death camps had reached the outside world, the German government invited the International Committee of the Red Cross to inspect conditions in the ghetto. In preparation for the visit, the Germans constructed temporary stores, cafes, banks, schools, and flower gardens, all for the purpose of disguising the reality of the ghetto. Joseph Goebbels even made a propaganda film to show how pleasant life in Theresienstadt was for the Jews. Shortly after the visit from the Red Cross, the participants in the film, including the children, were deported to Auschwitz. Throughout its life, approximately 144,000 Jews were deported to the ghetto. When the ghetto was liberated on 8 May 1945, there were 19,000 survivors; however, 33,000 had already died from the outbreak of epidemics, and 88,000 had been deported to the death camps.

   See also Brundibar.