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The Terezin Concentration Camp was actually a small ghetto because families were permitted to stay together. It was located in what is now the Czech Republic. Terezinstadt, a former fortress near Prague turned into a concentration for Jewish families. The Gestapo after the NAZIs seized Czechoslovakia (March 1939) converted Terezin's Small Fortress into a police prison for the Prague Gestapo (June 1940). The next year the SS established a ghetto and concentration camp for Jews in the Large Fortress and town of Terezin (November 1941). Nearly 140,000 Jews werev deported to Terezin from the Czech lands, as well as the Reich, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Slovakia. About 34,000 of those Jews died at Terezinstadt. It was a so-called show camp that the NAZIs used for propaganda purposes. Conditions at Terezinstadt were somewhat better than at other camps. The NAZIs used the camp to show the world how well they were treating the Jews. As reports began to leak out about the killing of Jews, the NAZIs used Thereisenstadt to show to the Red Cross and Western journalists on fact-finding missions. Here the NAZIs used the camp to prove that deported Jews were being treated well. Terezinstadt was a rare ghetto/concentration camp that foreign obsevers were allowed to see. A Swiss Commission wrote a glowing report. These inspection/fact finding visits, however, were infrequent. Camp authorities carefully briefed the Jewish inmates as to howthey were to behave beffore these visits. Terezin played a key role in the Czech holocaust. The Jews at Thereisenstadt, of course, were not well treated. The camp, however, was not a death camp. Conditions were superior to Auschwitz. The Jews were stripped of their property upon entering. Rations were limited, but they were allowed a degree of cultural life. The prisoners were allowed to organize classes for the children. They could put on plays and give concerts. They were even allowed to publish a camp newspaper. About 35,000 people there died from starvation and disease. The Terezin Jews were gradually transported to the death camps once they became operational in 1942. About 87,000 Jews are believed to have been transported from Thereisenstadt to Auschwitz and other death camps during 1942-44. The transports only ceased when the Red Army forced the NAZIs to close the death camps. About 83,000 of the deportees are believed to have perished. Most were murdered at Auschwitz. Drawings from some of the children survived. Gabi Freiova painted a colorful pictures of butterflys fluttering free over the countryside as she no doubt wished to do. Gabi and the other was transported to Auschwitz in 1944 where they were murdered. One little boy who miraculously survived asking his mother for a pet that he saw. She was horrified when she saw the animmal--a large rat rummaging for food. [Joel Fabien] One of the best descriptions was written by a girl, Jana Renee Friesova, who did not even know she was Jewish until the NAZIs occupied Czechoslovakia. She was a rare survivor. The Red Army liberated the camp (May 8, 1945). A handful of Danish Jewish children survived at Terezin, in part because the NAZIs were not sure they were Jewish.
It was located in what is now the Czech Republic. Terezinstadt, a former Austro-Hungarian fortress near Prague. The Gestapo after the NAZIs seized Czechoslovakia (March 1939) converted Terezin's Small Fortress into a police prison for the Prague Gestapo (June 1940).
The Terezin Concentration Camp was actually became a small ghetto because families were permitted to stay together. The SS turned the Large Fortress and town of Terezin into a concentration holding camp/ghetto/labor camp for Jewish families (November 1941).
Nearly 140,000 Jews were deported to Terezin from the Czech lands, as well as the Reich, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Slovakia. About 34,000 of those Jews died at Terezinstadt. It was a so-called show camp that the NAZIs used for propaganda purposes. Conditions at Terezinstadt were somewhat better than at other camps. The NAZIs used the camp to show the world how well they were treating the Jews.
As reports began to leak out about the killing of Jews, the NAZIs used Thereisenstadt to show to the Red Cross and Western journalists on fact-finding missions. Here the NAZIs used the camp to prove that deported Jews were being treated well. Terezinstadt was a rare ghetto/concentration camp that foreign obsevers were allowed to see. A Swiss Commission wrote a glowing report. These inspection/fact finding visits, however, were infrequent. Camp authorities carefully briefed the Jewish inmates as to how they were to behave before these visits.
Terezin played a key role in the Czech holocaust. They were fie first Jew interned there. It became a holding camp for them for transport to the death camps. As they were transported, space became availble for Reich and other Western European Jews.
The Jews at Thereisenstadt, of course, were not well treated. The camp, however, was not a death camp. Conditions were superior to Auschwitz. The Jews were stripped of their property upon entering. Rations were limited, but they were allowed a degree of cultural life. The prisoners were allowed to organize classes for the children. They could put on plays and give concerts. They were even allowed to publish a camp newspaper.
About 35,000 people died from starvation, mistreatment, and disease at Thereisenstadt. The Terezin Jews were gradually transported to the death camps inoccupied Poland once they became operational in mid-1942. About 87,000 Jews are believed to have been transported from Thereisenstadt to Auschwitz and other death camps during 1942-44. The transports only ceased when the Red Army advnces into Poland forced the NAZIs to close the death camps andtry to cover up what they had done. About 83,000 of the deportees are believed to have perished. Most were murdered at Auschwitz. The transports only ended when the Advncing Red rmy addvancing westward forced the nAZIs to closed down the death camps and try to cover up what they had been doing. Ee think tyhe last transports were in Octiober 1944.
Drawings from some of the children survived. Gabi Freiova painted a colorful pictures of butterflys fluttering free over the countryside as she no doubt wished to do. Gabi and the other was transported to Auschwitz in 1944 where they were murdered.
One little boy who miraculously survived asking his mother for a pet that he saw. She was horrified when she saw the animmal--a large rat rummaging for food. [Joel Fabien] One of the best descriptions was written by a girl, Jana Renee Friesova, who did not even know she was Jewish until the NAZIs occupied Czechoslovakia. She was a rare survivor.
We are not sure why the Danish Jews were sent to Theresienstadt in the first place, who issued the orders and why. A number of Jews during the Holocaust received special treatment, either because the Germans believed that they had some valur as bargaining chips or came from countries which the Germans saw as having valuable 'racial mterial' and were finding useful in their war effort. Transport to Theresienstadt required a long journey away from the death camps in Poland. And one there Danish officials persisted in inquiring about the Danish Jews. So NAZI officials were aware that they were being watched. People died at Theresienstadt, but it was not a death camp where people were murdered industrially. Somehow the Danes seem to have convinced Adolf Eichmann presumably through Reichsbevollmächtigter (Reich Plenipotentiary) Werner Best not to deport the Danish Jews in Theresienstadt on to the death camps in Poland. We are not sure just why this worked. Best was interested in a stabilizing the situation in Denmark. Perhaps he thought the murder of the Danish Jews would be disruptive. It is likely that Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop was involved. He was complicit in the Holocaust, involved in arrangements with foreign governments regarding Jews, primarily arraning for deportation. But he also intervened on occassions when neutral countries like Sweden and Turkey attempted to protect Jews, especially their nationals. Ribentrop was also involved attempts to maintain relations with neutral countries as the War turned against Germny. He even protected Argentine Jews for a while even though their country showed no interest in them. The Danish Government did. This is probably what happened with the Danish Jews, but we do not yet have details. Miraculosly nearly all the Danish Jews in Theresienstadt survived. Not only the Danish civil service, but church organizations constantly inquired about their whereabouts. The Danes collected over 700 packages of clothing, food and vitamins for the Jews in the camp. The Danes even arranged for an inspecion of Theresienstadt by the Danish Red Cross. Denmark of course was occupied by the Germans. But unlike several occupied countries was valuable to the Germans providing shipments of food and a wide range of war supplies like ammunition. Thus keeping the country quiet and preventing disruptions was in Germnany's interest. Since such a small number of Jews were involved, it was not a major concession. And there is little doubt that the Germans believed that after they won the war such small compromises could be rectified. The Danish Jews were rescued by the 'White Buses' operation. This was a rescue operation organized by the Swedish Red Cross and the Danish government (spring 1945). The purose was to rescue NAZI concentration camp inmates and transport them to safety in neutral Sweden. The objective was initially to save Scandinavian citizens, but as it developed countries, it rapidly expanded to include citizens of other countries. Most of the concentration camps were the camps in northern Germany. The furthest the Whire Busses reached was Theresienstadt all the way south in Czechoslovakian (April 15). There they collected 423 surviving Scandinavian Jews--mostly Danes.
While transports to the cdeath camps stopped in late-1944 as the NAZIS had to close them down. There were transports into Theresienstadt into in the finl months of its existence. There were 1,454 Jews transported to Theresienstadt from Slovakia, 1,200 from Hungary, and 5,932 from the Protectorate (Bohemia and Morovia), Germany, and Austria who were married to gentiles. they had been exempted from deportations until the final months of theWar. The International Red Cross managed to transfer 1,200 Jews from Theresienstadt to Switzerland (February 1945) and 413 Danish deportees to Sweden (April 1945). Then in the final days of the War, some 12,700 prisoners from variius concentration camps in Germany were forced on foot or on trains before the Allies reached the camps. Most arrived more dead than alive. It was at this time that the survivors in Theresienstadt learned the the truth about the gas chambers and the murder of their family and friends.
The Red Army liberated the camp (May 8, 1945). A handful of Danish Jewish children survived at Terezin, in part because the NAZIs were not sure they were Jewish. There were 18,967 inmates in the camp when it was liberated, included some children. TThis was not the case in most other camps. .
Children were especially targeted by the NAZIs. As non workers, chuldren abd the elderly were usually the first to be murdered. Some were mirdered in the ghetties, vutrtully ll were murdered upon arrival at concentratioin camps. As a result, very few Jewish children survived. And pecious few were among the survivirs when the camps ware liberted t the end of the War. An estimsted, 90 percent of the Jewish children in occupied Europe were murdered in the Holocaust. Most of the child survivirs were children that had been hidden durung the war by brave sokves willing to rik therir lives. There were some children whon survived in Theresienstadt, primarily because there were transports into the camp after thr traspoprts to the death canp ended (Octyobr 1944). British philanthropist Leonardo G. Montefiore, the founder of the Central British Fund (CBF), was shocked by his visit to Paris where he saw the first liberated camp survivors. He managed to persuade the British government to allow 1,000 displaced children under the age of 16 into Britin. Eventully only 732 came. Of thoise were 300 children from Theresienstadt ho
Montefiore arranged to bring to Windermere. Many were actually older than 16 becuse so many of the youngr children has been murdered. The CBF (now the World Jewish Relief) was the major group organizing the children‘s rescue. The RF brought the children from Prague to Crosby-on-Eden in Cumbria aboard Stirkling Bombers (ugust 1845). The older children had m knowledge of life before the war. The younger children had no bexpoerience of life before life in ghettoes and camps. A camp was prepoared for the children at Windermere in he Lke District. Most came with just the shirts on their back. Everyting the children needed was provided. There was a closely chosen staff. The Camp was overseen by the psychologist Dr. Oscar Friedman who was a Jewish refugee from Berlin himself. Yhe goal was to bring these severly btraumatised children back into society. Mny od the children after wht they had been through were suspicious. For all they knew this was just anotyher murder ruse. The Windermere stiory is one of the mist hear-warming of the Holocaust. The horrifying aspecy is whst tinny fraction if the children tagetted were jnvolved.
Fabien, Joel.
Friesova, Jana Renee. Fortress of My Youth: Memoir of a Terezin Survivor
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