Theresienstadt family camp

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Camp section B IIb (marked orange) of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp (detail of an aerial photo of the Royal Air Force from August 1944)

The camp area in section B IIb that existed there from September 1943 to July 1944 is referred to as the Theresienstadt family camp or the Theresienstadt family camp in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp . More than 17,500 Jewish men, women and children who had previously been deported to Auschwitz from the Theresienstadt ghetto were temporarily held by the SS in the Theresienstadt family camp section . The majority of these deportees initially came from the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . Of the prisoners in the family camp, only just under 1,200 survived the Holocaust ; the majority were murdered in the gas chambers on site or died in Auschwitz-Birkenau due to the catastrophic living conditions. Some died after further deportation to other German concentration camps . The section of the Theresienstadt family camp in Auschwitz was used by Nazi propaganda to cover up the Holocaust; Among other things, prisoners in this part of the camp had to send postcards to relatives in the Theresienstadt ghetto before they were murdered, which were supposed to suggest that those who had actually been murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau are still "fine".

Background, storage area and start of use

Entrance gate to section B IIb of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp (photo from 2007)

From January 20, 1943 to February 1, 1943, five transports with a total of 7,001 Jewish people left the “Ghetto Theresienstadt” for the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, of which over 5,600 were murdered immediately after their arrival in the gas chamber. Thereafter, on the instructions of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, transports from the Theresienstadt ghetto to Auschwitz were temporarily suspended until September 1943.

After the arrival of two transports from the Theresienstadt ghetto on September 8, 1943 with 50,06 Jewish men, women and children in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the ten-month period of use of section B IIb in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as a so-called family camp only for Theresienstadt prisoners began. Since from this point in time the prisoners from transports from Theresienstadt were unusually closed and brought to camp section BII b without selection , this camp area was called family camp, especially because of this "privilege". The exact reasons for setting up this family camp have not been conclusively clarified; in any case, it served Nazi propaganda to deceive the outside world about the Holocaust. The prisoners of the September transports and two subsequent transports in December 1943 were not aware that the documents accompanying this transport included a six-month grace period with subsequent special treatment ("SB with six-month quarantine ") and that their murder was already planned.

The camp area B IIb used as the Theresienstadt family camp in Auschwitz comprised an area about 600 meters long and 130 meters wide fenced with barbed wire, around which a drainage ditch led. In this storage area there were 28 accommodation blocks , two barracks used as infirmary (No. 30 and 32), a weaving mill and a combined school and kindergarten barracks (No. 31). The construction work in camp section B IIb was still in progress in September 1943.

Deportations from the Theresienstadt ghetto to the family camp

From September 1943 to May 1944 the following train transports left the Theresienstadt ghetto to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp:

  • On September 6, 1943, two transports with a total of 5,007 people
  • On December 15 and 18, 1943, two transports with a total of 5,007 people
  • On May 15, 16 and 18, 1944 three transports with a total of 7,503 people

By May 1944, a total of 17,517 people from the Theresienstadt ghetto had been deported to the Theresienstadt family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, of whom only 1,167 survived the Holocaust.

Origin and composition of the prisoners

The first transports from the Theresienstadt ghetto to the Theresienstadt family camp in Auschwitz consisted exclusively of Czech Jews , especially young men who were close to the camp resistance in the ghetto. The deported men, women and children also included old and sick people. In the following transports, at least half of the inmates were of German, Austrian or Dutch origin. The transports of May 1944 consisted of only about a third of Czech Jews.

Arrival at the camp

In contrast to other transports with deported Jews, transports from the Theresienstadt ghetto in the Auschwitz concentration camp were not selected from September 1943 to May 1944, but instead were brought to the Theresienstadt family camp as a whole. The people captured there were registered as prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp , and as usual in the Auschwitz concentration camp, prisoner numbers were tattooed on the left forearm . After the admission procedure in the so-called sauna, later also in the central sauna, these newly admitted prisoners were allowed to wear marked civilian clothing instead of the striped prisoner clothing customary in Auschwitz .

Storage conditions

In contrast to the Auschwitz gypsy camp , the prisoners in the Theresienstadt family camp could not live together directly as part of the family, as men were housed in prisoner blocks (barracks) with even numbers and women and children in blocks with odd numbers. In addition to the "privilege" of being allowed to wear civilian clothes in the camp and to grow their hair, the inmates of the Theresienstadt family camp were able to write letters to their relatives and receive parcels. However, the post was subject to censorship and the parcels often did not reach their recipient in the warehouse due to theft.

The sanitary facilities in this section of the camp were completely inadequate, as only three washrooms and three primitive camp latrines made of concrete slabs with a total of 396 holes were available for all prisoners. Despite the relative freedom of movement in the family camp, the family associations were only allowed to hold private gatherings the hour before evening roll call; moreover, informal meetings could only take place in the latrine rooms, unobserved by the camp SS. After waking up, inmates were allowed only half an hour to wash, dress and tidy up their accommodations before the morning roll call.

In addition to the absolutely unsanitary conditions in this part of the camp, there was also inadequate health care and malnutrition. Of the approximately 5000 people sent to the Theresienstadt family camp in September 1943, approximately 1,100 died in the first six months of the camp as a result of the inhumane camp conditions.

Adult and juvenile prisoners were sometimes assigned to work details, where they mostly had to do construction work in the context of the completion of camp section B IIb when building barracks, creating a camp road or water channels when there was insufficient food. There was also a weaving mill on the camp site, where almost exclusively female prisoners made from textile scraps and similar. a. Sewing weapon belts for machine guns . There was also a delousing and potato peeling squad. Some work detachments were also deployed outside the camp section, such as the trolley detachment consisting of children and young people for distributing blankets and linen throughout the camp area. Overall, the conditions in the so-called Theresienstadt family camp in Auschwitz concentration camp were slightly more favorable than in other camp areas of Auschwitz.

Children's block

The children in the family camp were initially without care in the initial phase of the camp. Inmate Fredy Hirsch , who was already active in childcare in the Theresienstadt ghetto, successfully applied to the camp elder to use a prisoner block for childcare. Block 31 was finally used as a replacement for kindergarten and school under the direction of Hirsch, who was appointed block elder. Another barrack was later also used for childcare. About 700 children were looked after by prisoner educators in kindergarten, separated according to nationalities and age groups , or were taught in class-like associations. Forbidden, some of the lessons were taught in the Czech language and English was also taught. The children learned poetry in German and rehearsed theater performances, which were also attended by SS men. Dinah Babbitt painted a wall of the children's block with a scene from the children's film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Walt Disney .

“They played camp senior and block senior , roll call with caps , they played the sick who passed out during roll call and received beatings for it [...]. Once they also played gas chambers . They made a pit into which they pushed one stone after the other. "

- Report by the prisoner educator Hanna Hoffmann-Fischel about the games of the children's block in the family camp Theresienstadt. In: Inge Deutschkron : ... because hell was hers. Children in ghettos and camps , Cologne 1965, p. 54.

Camp management and prison functionaries

For the entire duration of its existence, the SS camp leader of the Theresienstadt family camp was the report leader Fritz Buntrock , who was feared by the prisoners because of his brutality. The prisoner Arno Böhm with the prisoner number 8 from the first transport of criminals as future kapos to the Auschwitz I concentration camp was used as a camp elder in this section of the camp by the SS. After Böhm was drafted into the Waffen SS for deployment at the front, the SS transferred prisoner Willy Brachmann Böhm's duties as camp elder. Buntrock was sentenced to death and executed in the Kraków Auschwitz Trial after the end of World War II .

Closure of the camp and the whereabouts of other groups of prisoners

Fredy Hirsch and several other camp officials were informed by the camp resistance by the beginning of March 1944 at the latest about the imminent murder of the inmates from the September transports. On March 6, members of the internal resistance movement finally reported that the crematoria of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp were already being prepared for the gassing of the prisoners. The hope that Hirsch would organize and lead an uprising was dashed, however; shortly afterwards he committed suicide with an overdose of barbiturates . Shortly before they were murdered, the inmates of the September transports in the family camp were told that they would be transferred to a labor camp in Heydebreck OS . On the night of March 8-9, 1944, 3,791 prisoners from the family camp had to get on trucks under this pretext and were driven to the gas chambers within the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where they were murdered. At the beginning of March 1944, the prisoners who were supposed to be murdered in the alleged family camp had to send postcards to their relatives once again. After the sender's death, these postcards arrived at the recipients in the Theresienstadt camp in Terezin and were intended to suggest that those who had already died in Auschwitz-Birkenau are still "doing well". The establishment of the Theresienstadt family camp is probably connected with a visit by a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross to the Theresienstadt ghetto. With a few exceptions, only 70 twins were exempted from the gassing at the instigation of camp doctor Josef Mengele , as he "needed" them for his twin experiments.

At the beginning of July 1944, the prisoners still living in this alleged family camp were subjected to a selection and around 3,000 to 3,500 men and women fit for work were transferred to other concentration camps. The remaining 6,500 to 7,000 inmates of the family camp were gassed on the night of July 11, 1944 and the following night. With this mass murder , the family camp in the Auschwitz concentration camp ended.

Well-known prisoners in the Theresienstadt family camp were u. a. Ruth Klüger , Jehuda Bacon and Ruth Bondy .

Further use until January 1945

After the Terezin family camp was liquidated, female Polish prisoners from the Pruszków transit camp were sent to section BII b . Most recently, female inmates from camp section B Ib who were classified as fit for work were transferred to this part of the camp.

literature

  • Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps . Vol. 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-52965-8 .
  • Wacław Długoborski , Franciszek Piper (eds.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Verlag Staatliches Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oswiecim 1999, ISBN 83-85047-76-X . 5 volumes:
    • I. Construction and structure of the camp.
    • II. The prisoners - living conditions, work and death.
    • III. Destruction.
    • IV. Resistance.
    • V. Epilog.
  • Hans G. Adler : Theresienstadt. The face of a coercive community 1941–1945 , epilogue Jeremy Adler; Wallstein, Göttingen 2005 ISBN 3-89244-694-6 (reprint of the 2nd verb. Edition Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1960. 1st edition ibid. 1955).
  • Miroslav Kárný : The Theresienstädter Family Camp (Bllb) in Birkenau (September 1943 – July 1944) , in: Hefte von Auschwitz 20 (1997), pp. 133–237.

Web links

Commons : Theresienstädter Familienlager  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Franziska Jahn: The "Theresienstädter Family Camp" (B IIb) in Birkenau. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (Ed.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps . Vol. 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. , Munich 2007, p. 113.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Irena Strzelecka, Piotr Setkiewicz: The family camp for Jews from Theresienstadt (B IIb) . In: Aleksander Lasik: The organizational structure of KL Auschwitz . In: Wacław Długoborski, Franciszek Piper (ed.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Oswiecim 1999, Volume 1: Construction and structure of the camp . Pp. 112-114.
  3. ^ Hans G. Adler: Theresienstadt. The face of a coercive community 1941–1945 ; Epilogue Jeremy Adler; Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, pp. 56 and 58.
  4. ^ Hans G. Adler: Theresienstadt. The face of a coercive community 1941–1945 ; Epilogue Jeremy Adler; Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, pp. 56-59.
  5. ^ A b c d Franziska Jahn: The "Theresienstädter Family Camp" (B IIb) in Birkenau . In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (Ed.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps . Vol. 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. , Munich 2007, p. 115.
  6. ↑ a b Michal Frankl: The Theresienstädter Family Camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on http://www.holocaust.cz @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.holocaust.cz
  7. ^ A b Franziska Jahn: The "Theresienstädter Family Camp" (B IIb) in Birkenau . In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (Ed.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps . Vol. 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. , Munich 2007, p. 114.
  8. ^ Hermann Langbein : People in Auschwitz. , 1980, p. 282.
  9. ^ Concentration camp suffering in comic format: The life of Dina Babbitt on Spiegel-online
  10. ↑ Quoted in: Franziska Jahn: The "Theresienstädter Familienlager" (B IIb) in Birkenau . In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (Ed.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps . Vol. 5: Hinzert, Auschwitz, Neuengamme. , Munich 2007, p. 115.
  11. ^ Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. , 1980, p. 283.