Theresienstadt ghetto

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Plan of Theresienstadt

The so-called Theresienstadt ghetto was established by the German occupiers in the former Austrian garrison town of Theresienstadt (Czech name Terezín) in November 1941 during the Second World War in the occupied part of Czechoslovakia named by the state authorities in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . As a collective and transit camp, it was part of the National Socialist forced camp system. The term “ Ghetto”Or“ Jewish residential area ”obscured the purpose of the camp because it was intended to suggest a longer stay for the prisoners. As early as 1955, HG Adler emphasized that the term ghetto was exclusively a cover-up term used by the National Socialists for this special form of concentration camp , which was, however, often adopted by others. The camp was part of the Nazi system for the “annihilation” of the Jews, the so belittling title of the “ final solution to the Jewish question ”. Initially, it was intended to accommodate prisoners from Czechoslovakia, but soon people from almost all of Europe were deported there.

history

Theresienstadt was built as a fortress by Emperor Joseph II at the end of the 18th century . It was divided into two parts: the garrison town and the small fortress . After the occupation of the Czechoslovakia counting Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939 and formation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia by the National Socialist German Reich became a prison in June 1940 Gestapo set up in the Small Fortress.

Painting by the Czech prisoner František Mořic Nágl (1942)

On October 10, 1941, Adolf Eichmann and Hans Günther , his head of the “ Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Prague ” (from August 20, 1942, Central Office for the Settlement of the Jewish Question ) decided to move all of Theresienstadt to a collective and transit camp for Jews to convert to the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia". As such, it initially did not differ from the transit camps in the other countries occupied by Germany. In December 1941, Jews were banned from emigrating from the Czech Republic. The original city population had to leave their homes after an eviction notice dated February 16, 1942. The " assembly camp (ghetto) " in the former garrison town was quickly filled with Jews from the entire Protectorate by the Gestapo . Theresienstadt was declared a camp under "Jewish self-administration", which in practice meant that the prisoners themselves had to provide accommodation, food, medical care or the care and boarding of the children. In name only, the ghetto was administered by a "council of elders", which was headed by the "Jewish elder". But in truth all decisions were subject to the SS camp commandant appointed by Günther . Günther again under stood as high SS-guide in one hand, the local structure of the Protectorate the police chief and at the same time as Jews Representative the Unit Eichmann in Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA).

The first Czech Jews as a Aufbaukommando from Prague prisons in the " transit camp (Ghetto) " deported . This had the task of preparing the use as a warehouse and creating a " Judenrat " as an internal administrative organization. The number of Jews deported here from the Protectorate grew rapidly. More than 28,000 Jews had already been deported in May 1942 and in September 1942 over 58,000 people were interned in a room that previously had 7,000 inhabitants. Of these, 30,000 were old and sick, of these 4,000 were disabled and 1,000 were blind. Many did not even have their own place to sleep.

The total number of people incarcerated here by May 1945 was about 141,000, including 70,000 old people and 15,000 children. During the last days of the war, another 13,000 more prisoners arrived who had been shipped to Theresienstadt from concentration camps in the German Reich and Poland that had been liquidated by the SS .

The number of those affected is broken down as follows:

country Number of internees
Bohemia and Moravia 73,500
German Empire 42,821
Austria 15,266
Netherlands 4,894
Slovakia 1,447
Bialystok (children) 1,260
Hungary 1,150
Denmark 476
Others 20th
Births + inconsistent additions 247
total 141.184

The fact that the ghetto was part of the extermination campaign against the Jewish population was not changed by the propaganda . A quarter of the prisoners in the Theresienstadt ghetto (around 33,000) died there mainly because of the appalling living conditions. Around 88,000 prisoners were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps such as Treblinka , Majdanek or Sobibor . Of these, only about 4,000 survived the war. There were many thousands of children among the dead.

The former school in Terezín - today the seat of the Ghetto Museum

The further fate of these people in exact numbers:

Departures number
deported to extermination camps 88.202
died in Theresienstadt 33,456
freed 1,654
fled 764
arrested and presumably killed 276
Left on May 9, 1945 16,832

On May 8, 1945, the Red Army liberated the ghetto.

Children in Theresienstadt

There were around 15,000 children among the prisoners in Theresienstadt. The inmate self-government tried to ensure that at least the children and young people had a chance of survival. They were housed in so-called children's homes, received somewhat better food at the expense of the elderly's chances of survival, and secret lessons from their carers (also called madrichim).

Of the children who were sent to the extermination camps, only 150 survived the end of the war. Poems and pictures of them from the ghetto have survived, which are now the subject of own exhibitions and publications.

propaganda

Theresienstadt had a special position as a concentration camp . For the Nazis it served as a “showcase” and “old age ghetto”. Because of this position, the treatment of the prisoners in Theresienstadt was comparatively "mild" compared to other Nazi concentration camps.

In the Wannsee Conference , the garrison town was designated as an “old age ghetto” for prominent and old Jews from Europe. They were forced to buy their housing. A large proportion of the prisoners, however, were Jewish families who had been deported from Bohemia and Moravia.

476 Jews were deported from Denmark to Theresienstadt in October 1943. Most of the Danish Jews were able to flee to Sweden after the occupation by Nazi Germany and were given exemplary support by the Danish population (see Rescue of the Danish Jews ). When the Danish government insisted on an inspection by the International Committee of the Red Cross , Theresienstadt was beautified into a “model ghetto” for months to refute reports of atrocities and appalling living conditions.

In order to take the impression of overpopulation, the transports of prisoners from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz were increased in the run-up to the visit . The Jews deported to Auschwitz in the course of this action were initially housed in a separate so-called " family camp" in Auschwitz-Birkenau so that they could be presented to the Red Cross in the event of any inquiries. After the controls were over, this camp was liquidated and the inmates murdered.

In Theresienstadt itself, cafés were set up for the duration of the “performance” and a children's opera Brundibár by the Czech composer Hans Krása was rehearsed and performed.

This was followed by the film Theresienstadt. A documentary film staged from the Jewish settlement area . Shooting began on February 26, 1944. Kurt Gerron was entrusted with the direction . The aim of the film was to show how well the Jews were doing under the “benefits” of the Third Reich. After the shooting, most of the actors and Gerron himself were deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp . On June 23, 1944, the Swiss Maurice Rossel and the Danes Frants Hvass and Eigil Juel Henningsen visited the camp, accompanied by a German Red Cross representative and a group of high-ranking SS officers.

In the drawing room of the technical office, up to 25 imprisoned artists were forced to produce progaganda material on behalf of the camp SS, which should support the official picture of the good living conditions in the so-called "ghetto". In addition to the official work, they secretly managed to make thousands of drawings and graphics about everyday life in the ghetto and its horror. When some of these drawings were successfully smuggled into Switzerland in 1944, some of the drawings fell into the hands of the SS. On July 17, 1944, four of the draftsmen were arrested in the course of the “Affair of the Painters of Theresienstadt”. Adolf Eichmann personally accused them of 'atrocity propaganda'. Ferdinand Bloch was murdered in the Small Fortress after the torture, Otto Ungar's right hand was mutilated, after which he was deported to Auschwitz together with Leo Haas and Bedřich Fritta . Leo Haas was the only one who survived and in the summer of 1945 saved the buried and walled-in drawings and paintings.

Shortly before the end of the war , the International Committee of the Red Cross succeeded after long negotiations with the SS in bringing Jews from Theresienstadt to neutral countries. 1,200 Jews were able to emigrate to Switzerland on February 6, 1945. On April 15, the surviving Danish Jews were released to Sweden as part of the White Bus rescue operation . The SS handed over responsibility for Theresienstadt to the Red Cross for almost two weeks, and on May 8, 1945, the Red Army liberated the ghetto.

Today the former garrison town is again an urban settlement; There is a state memorial in the grounds of the Small Fortress .

Known prisoners

  • Clara Arnheim (1865–1942), German painter
  • HG Adler (1910–1988), poet and scholar from Prague
  • Inge Auerbacher (* 1934), German chemist, brought to Theresienstadt as a child (see book "Ich bin ein Stern")
  • Isaak Bacharach (1854–1942), German mathematician (Capley-Bacharach theorem), first Jewish Vice-Rector of the Royal Bavarian Technical College in Nuremberg
  • Jehuda Bacon (* 1929), Israeli artist and professor of graphics, 1942 deported to Theresienstadt, 1943 deported to Auschwitz
  • Leo Baeck (1873–1956), rabbi, President of the Reich Representation of German Jews (1933–1943), deported to Theresienstadt in 1943, survivor
  • Elsa Bernstein (1866–1949), German writer
  • Josef Bor (1906–1979), Czech lawyer and writer ( The Abandoned Doll , Theresienstadt Requiem , The Third )
  • Isidor Caro (1876 / 77–1943), rabbi of the Cologne community
  • Robert Desnos (1900–1945), French writer and member of the Resistance , died of typhus on June 8, 1945 in Theresienstadt after the liberation
  • Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898–1944), Austrian artist / painter, was murdered in Auschwitz on October 9, 1944, gave painting courses in Theresienstadt, especially for children
  • Jakob Edelstein (1903–1944), Czech Zionist and first Jewish elder in the Theresienstadt ghetto
  • Arthur Eichengrün (1867–1949), German chemist, survivor
  • Georg Freiherr von Eppstein (1874–1942), Real Privy Councilor with the title of Excellency
  • Paul Eppstein (1902–1944), former director of the Mannheim Adult Education Center. "Elder of the Jews" in Theresienstadt, was shot there on September 27, 1944
  • Alfred Flatow (1869–1942), German participant in the 1st Summer Olympic Games
  • Gustav Felix Flatow (1875–1945), German gymnast and Olympic champion. Cousin of Alfred Flatow
  • Viktor Frankl (1905–1997), Austrian psychologist, 1942 Theresienstadt, 1944 2–3 days Auschwitz , survivor
  • Max Friediger (1884–1947), Danish chief rabbi and survivor of the Holocaust
  • Desider Friedmann (1880–1944), Austrian Zionist, lawyer and President of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (IKG)
  • Bedřich Fritta (1906–1944), Czech-Jewish graphic artist and caricaturist, he was the director of the drawing room, where up to 25 artists also worked illegally, in the affair of the painter of Theresienstadt he and his colleagues Bloch , Haas and Ungar because of the Spreading 'atrocity propaganda' arrested and deported, well over a thousand drawings were walled up and buried beforehand
  • Kurt Gerron (actually Gerson; 1897-1944) was a German actor, singer and director
  • Rolf Grabower (1883–1963), German professor of tax law and judge at the Reichsfinanzhof
  • Georg Gradnauer (1866–1946), German SPD politician
  • Ernst Grube (* 1932), vocational school teacher i. R., active in various organizations (Dachau camp community, support association for international encounters, etc.), regularly gives lectures to accompany lessons at schools
  • Ludwig Gutmann (1869–1943), Austrian photographer, murdered in Theresienstadt
  • Leo Haas (1901–1983), Austrian-German painter and graphic artist from Opava, imprisoned in the "Jewish concentration camp" Nisko in 1939 , made hundreds of drawings in Theresienstadt and later in Auschwitz, then prisoner in the "forgery workshop" of " Aktion Bernhard "
  • Moritz Henschel (1879–1947), German lawyer, last chairman of the Jewish community in Berlin during the National Socialist era and last chairman of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany
  • Alice Herz-Sommer (1903–2014), German-Czech pianist, lived with her son in Theresienstadt from 1943 to 1945, where she gave over 100 concerts
  • Hedwig Jahnow (1879–1944), Polish scholar of the Old Testament, licentiate hc, city councilor, deputy headmistress, was brought to Theresienstadt with the last Jews of Marburg on September 7, 1942, where she died of malnutrition one day after she turned 65
  • Regina Jonas (1902–1944), first female rabbi, November 1942 Theresienstadt, October 1944 Auschwitz, where she was gassed in December 1944
  • Peter Kien (1919–1944), Czechoslovakian writer (poems, dramas), draftsman and painter
  • Heinrich Klang (1875–1954), Austrian lawyer, professor and Holocaust survivor
  • Emil Klein (1873–1950), Austro-German physician and founder of naturopathic treatment
  • Hans Werner Kolben (1922–1945), German poet from Prague
  • Hans Krása (1899–1944), Jewish composer, author of the children's opera Brundibár
  • Irma Lauscher (1904–1985), Czech teacher, deported to Theresienstadt in December 1942, teacher in the ghetto (children's drawings from Theresienstadt), worked on the information sheet for the Israeli embassy in Prague and later an important contemporary witness and mediator, among others at Aktion Sühnezeichen
  • Fritz Levy (1901–1982), the last Jew from Jever, lost all relatives here
  • Gerhard Löwenthal 's paternal grandparents perished in Theresienstadt, and other relatives in other camps. Gerhard Löwenthal and his father were temporarily imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp .
  • Herbert Thomas Mandl (1926–2007), Jewish musician and author
  • Martha Mosse (1884–1977), German lawyer and the first female police advisor in Prussia. Mosse survived the Holocaust and was a witness in the Nuremberg trials
  • Karl Josef Müller (1865–1942), German painter, and his wife Louise Müller
  • Friedrich Münzer (1868–1942), German philologist
  • Benjamin Murmelstein (1905–1989), Austrian rabbi, scholar, member of the Jewish council in the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Vienna and the last Jewish elder in the Theresienstadt ghetto
  • František Mořic Nágl (1889–1944), Czech painter
  • Fanny Opfer (1870–1944), German song and oratorio singer
  • Ralph Oppenhejm (1924–2008), Danish writer. In his diary in 1945 he published the list of celebrities A
  • Alfred Philippson (1864–1953), German geographer, from June 8, 1942 as a Jew with his family in Theresienstadt. The advocacy of Sven Hedin led to his classification as "A-Prominent" and to easing the family's detention so that they could survive in Theresienstadt. Philippson wrote his memoirs “ How I became a geographer ” in Theresienstadt .
  • Georg Alexander Pick (1859–1942), Austrian mathematician
  • Friedrich Pincus (1871–1943), German ophthalmologist
  • Ottilie Pohl (1867–1943), city councilor from Berlin, Rote Hilfe , died after eleven months in Theresienstadt
  • Elise Richter (1865–1943), philology professor at the University of Vienna, died after six months in Theresienstadt
  • Martin Roman , (1910-1996), German musician after the war in the United States emigrated
  • Therese Rothauser (1865–1943), German opera and concert singer
  • Carlo Ross (1928–2004), German writer, dealt with his time in Theresienstadt in his autobiography "In the forecourt of Hell"
  • Martin Salomonski (1881–1944), Berlin rabbi, murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp
  • Rafael Schächter (1905–1944 / 1945), Czechoslovak pianist, composer and conductor. He was the organizer and one of the pioneers of cultural and artistic events in the Theresienstadt ghetto, deported to Auschwitz and died there.
  • Zikmund Schul (1916–1944), German composer , died in Theresienstadt
  • Heinz Jakob “Coco” Schumann (1924–2018), German jazz musician and guitarist
  • Ernst Springer (1860–1944), lawyer, State Finance Councilor in the Reich Debt Administration
  • Artur Stein (1871–1950), Austro-Czech ancient historian
  • Siegfried Translateur (1875–1944), German composer and music publisher, known as the composer of the Wiener Praterleben waltz , which became famous as the Sports Palace Waltz , perished in Theresienstadt
  • Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944), Czech-German composer, conductor and pianist. Died in Auschwitz-Birkenau
  • Emil Utitz (1883–1956), German-speaking philosopher and psychologist
  • Arthur von Weinberg (1860–1943), German chemist, entrepreneur and patron from Frankfurt am Main, arrested on June 2, 1942 and deported to Theresienstadt, died here on March 20, 1943
  • Max Weiss (1884–1954), German painter and graphic artist
  • Helga Hošková-Weissová (* 1929), Czech painter, deported to Theresienstadt in 1941
  • Hans Winterberg (1901–1991), Czech-German composer, of Jewish origin
  • Julie Wolfthorn (1864–1944), German painter, died on December 26, 1944 at the age of 80 in Theresienstadt

Commanders

  • Siegfried Seidl , camp commandant from November 1941 to July 1943, executed in 1947
  • Anton Burger , camp commandant from July 1943 to February 1944, sentenced to death in absentia, lived undetected in Germany until his death
  • Karl Rahm , camp commandant from February 1944 to May 1945, executed in 1947

See also

literature

Images and texts that were created in Theresienstadt

  • Bedřich Fritta : For Tommy's third birthday in Theresienstadt, January 22, 1944 , Pfullingen 1985 (picture book), ISBN 3-7885-0269-X .
  • Karl Loewenstein : From Hell Minsk to 'Paradise' Theresienstadt. Typescript in the archive of the Leo Baeck Institute , New York City ( digitized at the Center for Jewish History )
  • Eva Mändl Roubickova: “We are slowly getting used to ghetto life”. A diary from Theresienstadt [1941–1945], Ed .: Veronika Springmann, Konkret Literatur Verlag, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 3-89458-255-3 .
  • Hans Munk: Theresienstadt in pictures and rhymes , Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Konstanz 2004, ISBN 3-89649-920-3 .
  • Ralph Oppenhejm : At the limit of life. Theresienstadt diary. Rütten & Loening Verlag, Hamburg 1961
  • Hana Volavková (editor): There are no butterflies flying here. Children's drawings and poems from Theresienstadt 1942-1944 , Jugenddienst-Verlag, Wuppertal 1962
  • Helga Hošková-Weissová : Draw what you see. Drawings of a child from Theresienstadt , Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-783-7 .
  • Rudolf M. Wlaschek (Ed.): Art and culture in Theresienstadt. A documentation in pictures , Bleicher, Gerlingen 2001, ISBN 3-88350-052-6 .
  • Alfred Philippson: How I became a geographer , (1942 / Bonn 1996), ISBN 3-416-02620-9 .
  • Josef Bór: "Theresienstädter Requiem"
  • Ilka Wonschik: "It was probably a different star we lived on ..." Artists in Theresienstadt . Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-95565-026-1 .

Monographs

Yearbook

further reading

Movie

Web links

Commons : Ghetto Theresienstadt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ HG Adler : Theresienstadt, The face of a forced community . JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1955.
  2. ^ HG Adler: The Hidden Truth . JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1958.
  3. ^ HG Adler: Theresienstadt. The face… , page 29 in the dictionary
  4. ^ Auschwitz: History, Reception and Effect . In: Fritz Bauer Institute (Ed.): Yearbook on the history and effects of the Holocaust . tape 1 . Campus-Verlag, 1996, ISBN 3-593-35441-1 , ISSN  1432-5535 , Karel Margry: The concentration camp as an idyll: "Theresienstadt" - a documentary film from the Jewish settlement area , p. 319 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ^ Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of the European Jews , Volume 2, pp. 457/458.
  6. ^ Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of European Jews , Volume 2, p. 458.
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Theresienstadt: A story of deception and destruction , 2013, p. 188.
  8. ↑ Miroslav Kárný: The report of the Red Cross on his visit to Theresienstadt , Theresienstädter Studies and Documents, 3/1996, pp. 276-320.
  9. ↑ Bloch, Felix (Ferdinand, Friedrich). In: ghetto-theresienstadt.info. Archived from the original on October 30, 2007 ; accessed on February 1, 2020 . See also: history. In: pruvodce.com. Retrieved August 17, 2020 (Czech, see “Koncentrační tábor pro Židy, tzv. Ghetto Terezín”).
  10. ↑ Ungar, Otto. In: ghetto-theresienstadt.info. Archived from the original on November 10, 2007 ; accessed on November 30, 2019 .
  11. ^ Bedřich Fritta - Drawings from the Theresienstadt Ghetto. In: jmberlin.de. Retrieved September 25, 2019 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 30 ′ 37 ″  N , 14 ° 8 ′ 59 ″  E