Theresienstadt Concentration Camp - History

History

The fortress of Terezín was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 by the orders of the Austrian emperor Joseph II in the north-west region of Bohemia. It was designed to be a component of a projected but never fully realized fort system of the monarchy, another piece being the fort of Josefov. Terezín took its name from the mother of the emperor, Maria Theresa of Austria who reigned as archduchess of Austria in her own right from 1740–1780. By the end of the 18th century, the facility was obsolete as a fort; in the 19th century, the fort was used to accommodate military and political prisoners.

From 1914 till 1918 it housed one of its most famous prisoners: Gavrilo Princip. Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife on June 28, 1914, which led to the outbreak of the First World War. Princip died in cell number 1 from tuberculosis on April 28, 1918.

On June 10, 1940, the Gestapo took control of Terezín and set up the prison in the Small Fortress (kleine Festung). By November 24, 1941, the Main Fortress (große Festung, i.e. the walled town of Theresienstadt) was turned into a ghetto. To outsiders, it was presented by the Nazis as a model Jewish settlement, but in reality it was a concentration camp 'where over 33,000 inmates died as a result of hunger, sickness, or the sadistic treatment meted out by their captors. Theresienstadt was also used as a transit camp for European Jews en route to Auschwitz and Treblinka. 'Although some survivors claim the population reached 75,000, official records place the highest figure on September 18, 1942, at 58,491 in Kasernes (barracks) designed to accommodate 7,000 combat troups.'

SS-Hauptsturmführer Siegfried Seidl served as the first camp commandant in 1941. Seidl oversaw the labor of 342 Jewish artisans and carpenters, known as the Aufbaukommando, who converted the fortress into a concentration camp. Although the Aufbaukommando were promised that they and their families would be spared transport, eventually all were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in September 1944 for Sonderbehandlung, or "special treatment", i.e. immediate gassing of all upon arrival. Seidl himself was hanged for his crimes by a post-war tribunal in Vienna on 4 February 1947.

As in other European ghettos, a Jewish Council nominally governed the ghetto. In Theresienstadt this was known as the "Cultural Council" and eventually known by the residents as the "Jewish self-government of Theresienstadt". The first of the Jewish Elders of Theresienstadt was Jakob Edelstein, a Polish-born Zionist and former head of the Prague Jewish community. In 1943, he was deported to Auschwitz, where he was shot to death after watching as his wife and son were also shot to death. The second was Paul Eppstein, a sociologist originally from Mannheim, Germany. Earlier, Eppstein was the speaker of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland, the central organization of Jews in Nazi Germany. In the course of the liquidation transports in autumn 1944, when some two thirds of the ghetto population were deported to Auschwitz, Eppstein was allegedly shot in the Small Fortress. He died on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Hebrew calendar, after he informed the deported people of what was awaiting them in the "East". Benjamin Murmelstein, a Lvov-born Vienna Rabbi, succeeded Eppstein. In the last days of the ghetto's existence, Jiří Vogel of Prague served as the Elder. In addition, Leo Baeck was the speaker of the Council of Elders of Theresienstadt from 1943 to 1945. Before being deported from Berlin, he had served as the head of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland. He was to survive Theresienstadt and emigrated to London after the war.

Amongst those who died in Terezín was Alice Archenhold the wife of the astronomer Friedrich Simon Archenhold and their daughter Hilde. Having sold valuables to pay to travel to Terezín did not prevent her from being forced to live in overcrowded barracks and sleeping three to a bunk bed. Among those who were incarcerated there but survived, was Czech Olympic water polo competitor Kurt Epstein.

Many of the 80,000 Czech Jews who died in the Holocaust died in Theresienstadt, where the conditions were extremely difficult. In a space previously inhabited by 7,000 Czechs, now over 50,000 Jews were gathered. Food was scarce and in 1942 almost 16,000 people died, including Esther Adolphine (a sister of Sigmund Freud), who died on September 29, 1942; Friedrich Münzer (a German classicist), who died on October 20, 1942. Medicine and tobacco were strictly prohibited; possession could be punished by hard labor or death. Single men and women were officially forbidden to meet, or to communicate with a Gentile without German permission, however married couples often remained together and were able to sleep in the same quarters.

It soon became the "home" for a great number of Jews from occupied Czechoslovakia. The 7,000 non-Jewish Czechs living in Terezín were expelled by the Nazis in the spring of 1942. As a consequence, the Jewish community became a closed environment.