The Holocaust: Terezin Concentration Camp

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The HolocaustTerezin Concentration Camp
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History

• Terezin originally was a walled city and small
  fortress in Czechoslovakia built in the 1800s to
  protect the river and roads in the area
• When Nazi Germany took over much of
  Czechoslovakia in 1939, they renamed the town of
  7000 Theresienstadt
• Plans began to convert the town and fortress into
  a concentration camp for Jews and other
  non-Aryans

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Construction

• Construction to convert the village and fortress
  into a concentration camp began in 1940
• Work was done by two groups of Jewish slave labor
  from another camp

Guards lead workers preparing the camp
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Purposes of Terezin Camp

• Terezin was not an extermination camp such as
  Auschwitz and other death camps in Poland
• The camp was mainly designed as a slave labor
  camp (prisoners were forced to work) and a
  transit camp (prisoners were sent here for a
  short time before being sent to death camps
  further east)
• Terezin was unique because it was also used by
  the Nazis for propaganda. Originally, well-
  known Jewish artists and musicians were sent here
  so that their German supporters, and the world,
  would believe they, and other Jews, were being
  treated fairly well, as the Nazis claimed

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Location and Population

• Terezin was located in Czechoslovakia
• It was about 35 miles north of the large city
  Prague
• Most of its later prisoners were Czechoslovakian
  Jews and other non-Aryans, but people from over
  25 countries were eventually sent to Terezin

Terezin
Prague
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Camp Layout

• Terezin had two main parts, the fortress and the
  village
• The village was converted to a ghetto or place
  to crowd in and concentrate Jews and others
  behind walls
• The fortress was used for administration and as a
  place to hold and punish those who had violated
  rules

Fortress
Walled Village (became ghetto)
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Terezin Ghetto

• The Terezin ghetto was simply the village
  converted to a concentration camp with walls and
  barbed wire
• The village, before the Nazis, had 7000
  non-Jewish people, all who had to leave by early
  1942
• At its height, Terezin held over 55,000 people
• The Jews had to choose their own leaders to run
  the ghetto according to Nazi demands

Terezin ghetto map
Terezin leaders
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Terezin Fortress

• The small fortress outside the village was
  converted into the administration offices and
  guard barracks
• The cellblocks were converted to use for
  prisoners who broke rules
• There was also a medical area where experiments
  were performed

Cell Blocks and Crematorium
Cell Interior
Cell Blocks
Medical Wing
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Crematorium

• Terezin was not built with cremation facilities
• However, so many prisoners were dying that a
  crematorium building was built in September 1942
• Bodies of prisoners were burned and the ashes
  dumped in the river

Crematorium today
Gas Oven
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Arrival

• Jews and others were rounded up throughout German
  territories and sent to camps like Terezin
• Originally, many elderly, children, and artists
  were sent to Terezin

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Prisoner Identification

• Unlike prisoners at some concentration camps,
  prisoners at Terezin were not tattooed for
  identification
• Instead, prisoners had to wear a metal identity
  badge around their necks
• One of the reasons prisoners were not tattooed
  because of Terzins use for propaganda

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Living Conditions

• In general, conditions at Terezin were better
  than at other camps
• Still, overcrowding, forced labor, starvation,
  disease, abuse, torture and death were common at
  Terezin

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Cultural Life

• Even in these horrible conditions, cultural life
  survived and thrived
• Children were secretly taught by elders
• There were several bands and orchestras that were
  organized among Terezin prisoners
• Plays were performed regularly
• Artists captured scenes of camp life and smuggled
  them out or hid them for discovery

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Children act in camp performances
One of four prisoner orchestras
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Terezin as Labor Camp

• Prisoners were used as slave labor to produce
  materials for the Nazi war machine
• Work included splitting mica, building boxes and
  coffins, or spraying German uniforms white for
  camouflage on the Russian Front

Terezin gate with common concentration camp
motto Liberation through Work
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Terezin as Transit Camp

• Terezin was also used as a transit camp to
  temporarily hold people before they were sent
  east to extermination camps
• All prisoners arrived at the train station and
  marched the two miles to the camp
• Transit prisoners would only stay until there was
  room to transport them east to extermination
  camps and then they would march back to the
  station

Terezin train station in WWII
Terezin tracks today leading to the east
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Terezin as Nazi Propaganda

• From the beginning, Terezin was used as
  propaganda to prove that the Nazis were
  treating Jews and others well
• Nazis claimed that Terezin was used to protect
  the Jews
• Famous Jewish artists and musicians were sent
  here to show their German fans that they were
  well treated
• In 1943, 456 Dutch Jews arrived at Terezin and
  soon the Dutch and Swedish Red Cross demanded to
  see conditions at the camp
• To try to show the world that rumors of
  atrocities against Jews and others were untrue,
  Nazi leaders allowed a carefully controlled visit
  to Terezin by the Red Cross on June 23, 1944, a
  unique event in Nazi concentration camps

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Preparing for the Red Cross Visit

• The Nazis went to great lengths to prepare
  Terezin
• Thousands of prisoners were sent east to make the
  camp appear less crowded
• The Red Cross route and areas to visit were
  carefully controlled
• Rooms were enlarged and cleaned for the visit,
  with only 2-3 people per room where the Red Cross
  members visited
• Fake sinks that were not hooked up to water were
  installed to make conditions appear to be better
• The Red Cross reported that the Jews at Terezin
  were reasonably well treated in their official
  report

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Real Showers and Fake Sinks
Actual Terezin showers which were always in short
supply as was housing, sanitation, food, and
freshwater
The Nazis installed these sinks just for the Red
Cross visit but they were never connected
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Red Cross VisitPreparing Dinner
Paintings done by prisoners while at Terezin or
reproduced later
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Propaganda Movie

• The Red Cross visit was considered such a success
  that they decided to film a propaganda movie at
  Terezin to counter growing international
  knowledge of the true nature of German
  concentration camps
• The film was made in the late summer of 1944

Scene from Nazi propaganda film showing happy
people and good conditions at Terezin
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Liberation of Terezin

• Near the end of WWII, as the Soviet Red Army
  pushed towards Germany from the east, prisoners
  were sent west adding more prisoners to camps
  like Terezin
• On May 8, 1945 Russian troops liberated the camp
• An epidemic of Typhus, spread by prisoners
  brought from the east broke out in Terezin,
  killing many prisoners shortly after being freed

Survivors of Terezin
Russian sign announces Terezin under quarantine
for Typhus (a deadly, communicable disease
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Terezin by the Numbers

• Terezin concentration camp was in operation from
  November 24, 1940-May 8, 1945
• Terezin had a population of 7000 before the war
• Its population peaked at over 55,000 prisoners
  during the war and it averaged between
  30,000-35,000
• Over 144,000 people from over 25 countries went
  through the gates of Terezin
• Over 33,000 people were murdered or died from
  conditions at Terezin
• Over 88,000 died after being sent east to death
  camps
• Less than 20,000 people survived
• Out of 15,000 children under 15, less than 1500
  survived

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Terezin Today

• The fortress at Terezin was used to hold Nazi
  prisoners for a short time after WWII
• Czechoslovakia became a communist country
• Terezin returned to its roots as a medium-sized
  town after the war
• Today Terezin is part of the Czech Republic

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Terezin Museum and Monument
Fortress graveyard today

• Terezin remained fairly quiet about its past
  under communism
• A Terezin Museum was finally created in 1989
• Every year it is visited by thousands to remember
  and learn

Terezin Museum
Terezin Monument
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Why Remember?

• We need to remember Terezin and the Holocaust to
  honor the memory of its victims and to see the
  consequences of intolerance
• Also, we need to understand Terezin and the
  Holocaust to try to recognize and fight against
  modern genocides happening today- right now

Bodies discovered in a Polish ghetto- 1945
Bodies discovered from the genocide in the Darfur
region of Africa- present day
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Lisl Bogart Eyewitness to Terezin

• On May 14th 2007, Mrs. Lisl Bogart spoke at
  Guilford High School
• Lisl was a teenager living in Prague,
  Czechoslovakia when the Nazis sent her and her
  family to Terezin
• Mrs. Bogart survived 3 ½ years at Terezin
• Her mother, father, and brother were sent from
  Terezin to Auschwitz where they were all murdered
• Mrs. Bogart speaks around the country as an
  eyewitness to the history of the Holocaust

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Special Thanks toNathan WhithamandMr. Doug
Cameron