Theresienstadt – Wulkow
Within the National Socialist system of ghettos and concentration camps, the Theresienstadt ghetto played a special role as a site of particular "deception and propaganda": While the Reich propaganda machine presented it as a "model" ghetto or alleged "Reich retirement home" (some prominent and wealthy Jews gave up everything to buy their way into this specific camp), it was in fact a transit camp to the extermination sites further east, and above all to Auschwitz. Because of this deceptive narrative, the prisoners also referred to the town as "Als ob Stadt" ("As if town") after a poem by Leo Straus.
The Theresienstadt ghetto was founded by the SS in the autumn of 1941 in the fortress town Terezín in the Bohemian district of Leitmeritz, northwest of Prague in the German-occupied "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia". The Czech inhabitants were forced to resettle in the interior of the country. They had not yet all been evacuated when the first Jewish deportees from Prague arrived in November to set up the camp. Over time, Jews were deported to Theresienstadt from all the countries occupied by the Germans. At the so-called Wannsee Conference in January 1942, as a part of their plan to murder all Jews, Nazi officials decided to make Theresienstadt a "ghetto of the elderly". As a result, Theresienstadt, as a stopover on the way to the extermination camps, became a part of the concept by which the SS attempted to conceal the extent of the mass murder.
- © Privat
According to a decree of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) of 21 May 1942, the following persons were to be deported from the German Reich to Theresienstadt: (1) Jews over 65 years of age and frail Jews over 55 years of age with their spouses, (2) holders of high military decorations and the Wound Badge from the First World War as well as their wives, (3) Jewish spouses from former, so-called mixed German-Jewish marriages and (4) single Jewish people who were persecuted as so-called "Mischlinge" (hybrids). In addition, the Gestapo prison was located in the Small Fortress next to the Theresienstadt ghetto in the Great Fortress.
After their arrival in the ghetto, women and men were separated and families were torn apart. The Czech survivor Hanuš Hron clearly describes the situation:
"In Theresienstadt ... it was like this, in the first days or first months or maybe a whole year, as long as the former population was still living in Terezín, (...) the men and women were separated into different barracks and (...) you couldn't visit each other ... and only if you were lucky (...) you went to work in another barracks, where you might meet your wife or sister".
Hanuš Hron, 2021
The prisoners lived in barracks that had previously housed Wehrmacht soldiers, who had left only bare walls behind, as well as in other buildings within the Great Fortress. The ghetto quickly became overcrowded. The new arrivals moved into attics, were housed in entrances, in cellars, in courtyards or in shacks; but everywhere was unbearably cramped. The prisoners could hardly move in the overcrowded rooms, they slept on straw sacks in bunk beds or on the bare floors. Privacy was non-existent.
„I was given a place in the draughty attic of the Hanover barracks with a mattress made of paper fabric, filled with very little straw, size 190 x 80 cm. The mattresses were laid on the floor with 15 cm gaps between them, the transport number on the wall. The attic was to be my home for the next few months. I had a blanket in my rucksack, which served me well. We had neither sheets nor pillows, we slept with our clothes on. The wind blew through the open rafters and you had to keep yourself warm because there was no heating of any kind.“
Walter Grunwald in his report "Erlebtes" ("Experiences")
The hygienic conditions were also catastrophic due to the overcrowding of the camp. There was a lack of sanitary facilities and the (drinking) water supply was completely inadequate.
„Before the war, Theresienstadt including the entire military occupation (had) 12,000 inhabitants (...) and all of a sudden the inhabitants increased up to 55,000, so the worst problem was water.“
Hanuš Hron, 2021
As a result of these extreme conditions, pathogens, vermin and rats multiplied, creating the ideal environment for diseases and epidemics to spread. The prisoners' desperate situation was exacerbated by an inadequate supply of food and forced, hard physical labour. According to Grunwald, hot food was only available once a day, at lunchtime and usually consisted of an indeterminable soup that consisted mainly of water.
„Warmes Essen gab es nur einmal am Tag, zur Mittagszeit, meist eine undefinierbare Suppe, die vor allem aus Wasser bestand“
Walter Grunwald in seinem Bericht „Erlebtes“
The lack of medication and medical equipment, which could not be compensated for even by the valiant efforts of the Jewish doctors and carers, affected the elderly in particular.
„Old people who had no work had it the worst, even their rations were smaller, so they were always hungry. (...) In mid-1942, transports of overaged (?) people from Germany arrived (...), there were tens of thousands of old people, they were told they were being sent to health resorts, so a spa town, but that was obviously a lie. (...) and they were hungry and sick, the death toll in Theresienstadt rose to 180 people per day.“
Hanuš Hron, 2021
Walter Grunwald also suffered due to the bureaucracy of the camp administration, corruption and theft, which were facilitated by the situation in the ghetto, as was jealousy:
„Verließ man seine Matratze, hatte man Sorge, dass man bestohlen wurde. Man musste die wenigen Habseligkeiten gut verstecken, das lernte man ziemlich schnell. Ich konnte mich mit dieser Umgebung nicht abfinden. Ich war nahe daran, aufzugeben.“
Walter Grunwald in seinem Bericht „Erlebtes“
- © Privat
All prisoners over the age of 14 who were considered fit for labour had to work for ten to twelve hours a day. After their arrival, they had to report to the "placement office" and were informed of their place of work shortly afterwards by the "employment office". Some prisoners were assigned to communal facilities, including care centres for children and the elderly, the kitchens and the laundries. Käthe Rosenbaum, for example, worked in the laundry as a machine operator, and Hanuš Hron, who was sixteen at the time worked at the waterworks where he repaired pumps and pipes. These types of jobs enabled the prisoners to support their families with food and saved them from deportation. Other prisoners had to cultivate the agricultural land surrounding Theresienstadt or worked in war production, for example in the splitting of mica or in the production of uniforms for the Wehrmacht.
- © Jewish Museum in Prague
There were also labour details that were deported to special assignments outside the ghetto. Among others, these included the external labour detail "Barrack Construction", which left Theresienstadt for Wulkow at the beginning of March 1944. Being sent to Wulkow turned out to be a blessing in disguise: by working in Wulkow until February 1945, they and sometimes even their families escaped the deportations in the autumn of 1944, when masses of prisoners from Theresienstadt were murdered in Auschwitz.
- © Jewish Museum in Prague
Life in the ghetto was regulated by the Council of Elders (also known as the "Jewish Council"), whose members came from Prague's Jewish community. They had hoped to organise the ghetto under Jewish self-administration. However, they instead received their instructions directly from the SS commandant's office and were responsible for implementation of the rules. One of their tasks was to compile the lists for the deportations, which were later enforced by the SS. As the guidelines for the deportations were constantly changing, no one was ever safe - not even the Council of Elders. For its part, the SS camp administration was subordinate to the SS leadership of the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" and the RSHA.
Despite the cramped conditions, insufficient supplies, illnesses and forced labour, there were many cultural and educational activities in the ghetto. These included theatre and music performances that were intended to help the prisoners strengthen their will to live and forget about their everyday life for a short moment. At the end of 1943, as more and more information about the extermination camps began to reach the international public, the German leadership allowed an investigative commission of the International Red Cross to visit Theresienstadt. Prior to the commission's visit in the summer of 1944, the SS leadership deported 7,500 prisoners to the so-called family camp at Auschwitz in order to "clear" the ghetto and present it as being less overcrowded. In addition, they renamed all the facilities in the ghetto, opened shops and a café, built a theatre stage, a prayer house, a school and a library and planted flowering gardens. The commission's visit on 23 June 1944 went according to a precise plan, and the meetings with the prisoners in particular were meticulously orchestrated.
At the end of the visit, the SS commissioned a propaganda film about the life of the Jews under the "protection of the Third Reich": Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet ("Theresienstadt: A Documentary Film from the Jewish Settlement Area") (1944/45), better known under the title: Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt ("The Führer Gives a City to the Jews"). Even before the film was completed, the director Kurt Gerron and numerous contributors, who had hoped that cooperating would save their lives and those of their families, were deported to Auschwitz and murdered. They were among the last 18,500 deported Jews who were taken to Auschwitz by the SS between 28 September and 28 October 1944 and for the most part murdered in the gas chambers.
- © Privat
Shortly before the liberation, daily goods trains carrying prisoners from the evacuated camps in the east arrived in Theresienstadt. Due to increased overcrowding, the situation there became more and more chaotic every day. At the beginning of May 1945, the SS transferred control of the ghetto and the Gestapo prison to the International Red Cross, two weeks before the Red Army troops reached Theresienstadt on 8 May 1945.
„I will never forget this day. People all over were waving flags and singing national anthems. Many didn't even understand what had happened. But everyone was happy and satisfied. And so was I. I had survived 26 months of imprisonment.“
Walter Grunwald in his report "Erlebtes" ("Experiences")
During this time, a typhus epidemic had broken out in the camp: Theresienstadt was quarantined and nobody was allowed to leave. Despite a large-scale relief operation initiated in Prague and the surrounding area, between 800 and 1000 prisoners died after the liberation. A large number of the survivors suffered from the effects of imprisonment, abuse and deprivation for many years. The joy of liberation was mixed with grief and pain for lost loves, the murdered and the dead.
Of the 160,000 people who came through the ghetto between 1941 and 1945, around 35,000 died in the camp and only a quarter survived. Around 88,000 people were deported to the extermination camps. The majority were murdered there.