Theresienstadt : an overview
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Theresienstadt
(Czech, Terezin),
ghetto established in Czechoslovakia.
It was run by the SS and commanded, in turn, by :
Siegfried Seidl (November 1941 - July 1943),
Anton Burger (July 1943 - February 1944), and
Karl Rahm (February 1944 - May 1945).
Czech gendarmes served as the ghetto guards,
and with their
help the Jews were able to maintain contact with the outside
world.
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Adapted
from the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust
The
Nazi Plan for Theresienstadt |
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The Nazi plan was :
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to concentrate in Theresienstadt most
of the Jews of the Protectorate as well as certain categories
of Jews from Germany and western European countries :
prominent persons, persons of special merit, and old people
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to transfer the Jews gradually from
Theresienstadt to extermination camps ; and
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to camouflage the extermination of
European Jews by presenting Theresienstadt as a "model
Jewish settlement."
The leaders of Czechoslovak
Jewry supported the plan hoping it would mean that the Jews
would not be deported.
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The first Jews,
came to Theresienstadt at the end of November 1941. Conditions
were similar to those in concentration camps, and it did not
take long to dispel the hope that Theresienstadt would save
Jews from deportation; the first such deportation, of 2,000
Jews to Riga, took place in January 1942. Deportation cast
a pall of terror over the inmates. Yet, living conditions
actually improved as time went on. |
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In September 1942
the ghetto population reached its peak, 53,004 people, and
Jews continued arriving until the end of the war. Deportations
to the east - to ghettos in Poland and the Baltic states and,
as of October 1942, to the Treblinka and Auschwitz extermination
camps - were continued. The final phase began in the fall
of 1944, continuing until the gas chambers in the east ceased
to function; only 11,068 people remained in the ghetto. |
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The internal affairs of the ghetto were
run by an Altestenrat (Council of Elders), under Jacob Edelstein,
who was succeeded, in turn, by the sociologist Paul Eppstein
and Rabbi Benjamin Murmelstein of Vienna. The Jewish leadership
had to compile lists of those to be deported. It was also
responsible for allocating work, distributing food, providing
housing, and overseeing sanitation and health services, the
care of the old and the young, cultural activities, and the
maintenance of public order. Its achievements helped ease
the prisoners' lot. Although schooling was prohibited, regular
classes were held, clandestinely. Thanks to the large number
of artists, writers, and scholars in the ghetto, there was
an intensive program of cultural activities. Religious observance
had to contend with difficult conditions, but it was not officially
banned. |
The International
Red Cross Visit
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At the end of 1943, when word spread
in the outside world of what was happening in the Nazi camps,
the Germans decided to allow an International Red Cross investigation
committee to visit Theresienstadt. In preparation, more prisoners
were deported to Auschwitz, so as to reduce congestion.
Dummy stores, a cafe, a bank, kindergartens,
a school, and flower gardens were put up. The committee's
visit took place on July 23, 1944; the meetings of the committee
members with the prisoners had all been prepared in advance,
down to the last detail. In the wake of the "inspection" the
Nazis made a propaganda film showing how the Jews were leading
a new life under the protection of the Fuhrer. When filming
was completed, most the "cast, " were deported to Auschwitz.
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As a result of the
intolerable conditions in the ghetto epidemics broke out,
taking a fearful toll. By the end of 1943 the ghetto health
department had managed to set up a hospitals, and a beginning
was made in regular medical checkups and inoculations against
contagious diseases; the mortality rate began to drop. |
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In the last six
months of the ghetto's existence, more Jews were added to
its population; from Slovakia, Hungary, the Protectorate,
Germany, and Austria. Before the war came to an end, the International
Red Cross succeeded in transferring some of them to neutral
countries. At the end of April the ghetto experienced its
final shock, when the Germans brought in thousands of prisoners
who had been evacuated from concentration camps. As a result
there was a new outbreak of epidemics in Theresienstadt. On
May 3, five days before the ghetto was liberated by the Red
Army, the Nazis handed Theresienstadt over to a Red Cross
representative. The last Jew left Theresienstadt on August
17, 1945. |
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According to a number
of sources, between November 24, 1941, and April 20, 1945,
140,000 Jews were taken to Theresienstadt. Of these, 33,000
died there, 88,000 were deported to extermination camps, and
19,000 survived either in Theresienstadt or among the two
groups that had been transferred to Switzerland and Sweden;
and 3,000 of those deported survived. By national origin,
the people who had been taken to Theresienstadt came from
Czechoslovakia (75,500), Germany (42,000), Austria (15,000),
the Netherlands (5,000), Poland (1,000), Hungary (1,150),
and Denmark (500). |
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After the war, two
of the commandants of Theresienstadt, Siegfried Seidl and
Karl Rahm, were sentenced to death by a Czechoslovak court
and were hanged; Anton Burger escaped and was sentenced to
death in absentia. |
Courtesy
of :
"Encyclopedia of the Holocaust"
©1990 Macmillan Publishing Company
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