#5 Theresienstadt model town in the Holocaust ...

The name Theresienstadt is familiar to me because it comes up as the birth place for several of my ancestors so I was keen to learn more about it & to be able to put an image to the place name.  My knowledge of its time during the Holocaust was patchy because the Holocaust is such a vast topic spread over much of Europe with hundreds of camps so you cannot know the full details of each & I was keen to know what role Theresienstadt had in the Holocaust. 

    

On a cold October morning, we entered the pretty town, passing the small walled fortress, parking up then doing the short walk to it.  We were greeted by many graves of the National Cemetery where victims of the Gestapo Police prison,  the Terezin Ghetto & the death transports from Litomerice concentration camp were buried individually & in mass graves. A large cross & Star of David stands amongst the headstones. 

The small walled fortress became a Gestapo prison in 1940

The Small Fortress had the character of a transitional prison, where the prisoners were being gradually sent to concentration camps. Around 2,600 prisoners were killed in the fortress through hunger, torture and poor hygiene. Thousands died after being transported from Terezín to concentration camps and elsewhere.

Another guide joined us & he took us around the fortified castle where Jews from all over Europe were held. Reinhard Heydrich's reputation followed  us again from Prague to here as he decided at Wannsee that Theresienstadt would house prominent Jews over the age of 65 & those who were too high profile to be transported to other camps where they would be missed. To deflect attention, Heydrich attempted to model Theresienstadt as a spa town, a caring place where Jews were safe. 

At the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942, Heydrich announced that Theresienstadt would be used to house Jews over the age of 65 from the Reich, as well as those who had been severely wounded fighting for the Central Powers in World War I or won the Iron Cross 1st Class or a higher decoration during that war. These Jews could not plausibly perform forced labor, and therefore Theresienstadt helped conceal the true nature of deportation to the East. Later, Theresienstadt also came to house "prominent" Jews whose disappearance in an extermination camp could have drawn attention from abroad.^[2] To lull victims into a false sense of security, the SS advertised Theresienstadt as a "spa town" where Jews could retire, and encouraged them to sign fraudulent home purchase contracts, pay "deposits" for rent and board, and surrender life insurance policies and other assets

We were shown a propaganda film that was made at the time showing life there as idyllic & safe. 

Theresienstadt was a hybrid concentration camp and ghetto established by the SS in November 1941 in the fortress town Terezín, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German-occupied Czech lands). It was simultaneously a waystation to the extermination camps, and a "retirement settlement" for elderly and prominent Jews to mislead their communities about the Final Solution. The harsh conditions were deliberately engineered to cause the death of prisoners. Of the approximately 155,000 people sent to Theresienstadt before the end of the war, 35,000 died at the ghetto from hunger and disease and 83,000 perished after deportation to various ghettos, extermination camps, and other killing sites. The ghetto was run by the Council of Elders headed by the "Jewish elder", which was responsible for implementing Nazi orders

We knew that this was not true & the inhabitants had to put on a show for the Red Cross & later for the International Red Cross to hide the treatment of people in the Ghetto.  It was not something they could refuse to do under the dangerous circumstances. 

The conditions & rooms we were shown were similar to other sites we had been, including the familiar Arbeit Macht Frei sign over the courtyard entrance. 

In the late 1960s, East Germany arrested Kurt Willi Wachholz , a former Small Fortress supervisor. Wachholz was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity for participating in the murders of over 300 prisoners, some of whom he personally beat, stoned, kicked, and drowned. He was also convicted of complicity in the firing squad executions of at least 183 people. Wachholz was sentenced to death in 1968, and executed at Leipzig Prison on 28 April 1969.

I had crossed paths some years back with Gavrilo Princip who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, his wife Sofia & their unborn child in Sarajevo & this was the catalyst for the start of WW1. I had not expected to cross paths with the imprisoned assassin in Theresienstadt & where he died in an isolation cell. 

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The walled fortress once again echoed the brutality of the treatment of its mainly Jewish prisoners - the executions by bullet etc. From here many were transported to Auschwitz, Riga etc with very few surviving the camps.  

We crossed in to the town to visit the excellent Ghetto  museums set over several floors before carrying on down the pretty streets to the Magdeburg Barracks building set up as a memorial to that time of history, the rooms show the crowded conditions under which the transported had to live & survive. 

 On 24, 27, or 28 June 1943, DRK representative Walther Georg Hartmann and his deputy, Heinrich Nieuhaus, were allowed to visit the ghetto,^[18] guided by German Foreign Ministry official Eberhard von Thadden.  They confirmed the delivery of Red Cross supplies and secured permission from the SS that overflows would be sent to other camps, especially Auschwitz concentration camp. In his report, Hartmann described the ghetto's conditions as "dreadful" and "frightfully overcrowded"; the prisoners were severely undernourished and medical care was completely inadequate. 

Of all Red Cross reports on Theresienstadt, Hartmann's was the only one to be broadly accurate. Hartmann leaked his impressions to ICRC official André de Pilar, who in turn reported them to the ICRC in Geneva and to Gerhart Riegner, secretary of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, directly in July 1943. Contrary to SS expectations, the visit actually increased DRK suspicions about the Nazi extermination program.

History really does cross countries & sometimes we are fortunate to be able to connect names & events which gives a better understanding of the complexities of war & peace, of winners & losers ... 

The exhibitions also show that many were artistic people, musicians etc, then back out on to the pretty streets for a walk to the Jewish cemetery that had ovens to dispose of the dead. The large cemetery with its Star of  David a sobering reminder of the dark history that played out on these now pretty streets. 

We respectfully covered our heads for the trip to the Jewish cemetery on the side of town with the large Star of David & it crematoria where the dead were. 

A monument was built & a memorial site laid out to commemorate the liquidation of the bigger part of the cinerary urn that contained the ashes of the victims cremated in the Jewish Cemetery Crematorium. In November 1944, the ashes were thrown in to the Ohre river & the urns were burnt to hide the deeds.

It was a sombre scene being so close to the crematoria & several of us lit candles & said prayers ...  

It was very interesting to be able to put images to a place name that I knew through my family history research, how the decisions made in Wannsee stretched far across our tour, effecting many nationalities & towns across Europe. 

Thank you for stopping by & allowing me to share this with you on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, cherish peace, 

Dee