Location of the concentration camp in the Czech Republic

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Concentration camp Theresienstadt was a concentration camp set up by the Gestapo in the fortress and garrison city Terezín (German name Theresienstadt), located in what is now the Czech Republic. Selection at the Auschwitz ramp in 1944, where the Nazis chose whom to kill immediately and whom to use as slave labor or for medical experimentation. ... Raul Hilberg, a well-known historian of the Holocaust, identified four distinct Phases of the Holocaust. ... The racial policy of Nazi Germany was the set of rascist policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany primarily against Jews. ... This poster reads: 60,000 Reichsmark is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community during his lifetime. ... Prior to and during World War II Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps (Konzentrationslager or KZ) throughout the territory it controlled. ... The following is a list of German concentration camps during World War II. are marked with pink, while major concentration camps of are marked with blue. ... German Jews have lived in Germany and contributed to German culture for over 1700 years, through both periods of tolerance and spasms of anti-Semitic violence, culminating in the Holocaust and the destruction of the Jewish community in Germany and much of Europe. ... Pogrom (Russian: ; from громить - to wreak havoc, to demolish violently) is a form of riot, a massive violent attack on a particular group; ethnic, religious or other, primarily characterized by destruction of their environment (homes, businesses, religious centers). ... Die Kristallnacht, also known as die Reichskristallnacht (literally Imperial Crystal Night), die Pogromnacht and in English as the Night of Broken Glass, was a massive nationwide pogrom in Germany and Austria on the night of November 9, 1938 (including the early hours of the following day). ... The IaÅŸi pogrom of June 27, 1941 was one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history, launched by governmental forces in the Romanian city of IaÅŸi against its Jewish population, resulting in the brutal mass-murder of 13,266 Jews. ... After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, special Einsatzgruppen were organized to kill as many Jews as it was possible in the Polish areas annexed by Soviet Union. ... Lviv (Ukrainian: Львів, L’viv ; Polish: Lwów; Russian: Львов, Lvov; German: Lemberg; Yiddish: לעמבערג; Latin: Leopolis; see also Cities alternative names) is a city in western Ukraine, the capital city of the Lviv Oblast (province) and one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine. ... Ghettos established by the Nazis in which Jews were confined, and later shipped to concentration camps. ... The Ghetto Heroes Memorial The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany in General Government during the Holocaust in World War II. In the three years of its existence, starvation, disease and deportations to concentration camps and extermination camps dropped the population of the... The Łódź Ghetto was the second-largest ghetto (after the Warsaw Ghetto) established for Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. ... The Lwów Ghetto (also called the Lemberg Ghetto, Lviv Ghetto, and Lvov Ghetto) was one of the larger Ghettos established for Jews in Poland by Nazi authorities. ... Deportation of Jews from the Kraków Ghetto, March 1943 The Jewish ghetto in Kraków (Cracow) was one of the five main ghettos created by the Nazis during their occupation of Poland during World War II. It was a staging point to begin dividing able workers from those who... Einsatzgruppen (a German military term meaning mission groups, loosely translated as Task Force) were semi-military groups formed in Nazi Germany before and during World War II. These death squads belonged to the SS and followed the Wehrmacht in their attacks first on Poland and then the Soviet Union. ... The massacre at Babi Yar Babi Yar, Russian:Бабий яр, (Ukrainian:Бабин яр, Babyn Yar) is the name of a ravine situated outside the Ukrainian city of Kiev. ... Rumbula Forest is a pine forest enclave in Riga, Latvia. ... Paneriai (Polish: , German: ) is a suburb of Vilnius, situated about 10 kilometres away from the city centre. ... The Odessa Massacre was the extermination of Jews and Communists in Odessa during the autumn of 1941. ... In a February 26, 1942 letter to Martin Luther (diplomat), Reinhard Heydrich follows up on the Wannsee Conference by asking Luther for administrative assistance in the implementation of the Endlösung der Judenfrage (Final Solution of the Jewish Question). ... The Wannsee Conference was the discussion by a group of Nazi officials about the Final Solution of the Jewish Question (Endlösung der Judenfrage). ... Operation Reinhard (Aktion Reinhard, Einsatz Reinhard, Aktion Reinhardt or Einsatz Reinhardt in German) was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the former General Government and rob their possessions. ... Majdanek - crematorium Extermination camp (German: Vernichtungslager) or Death Camp was the term applied to a group of facilities set up by Nazi Germany during World War II for the express purpose of killing the Jews of Europe, although members of some other groups whom the Nazis wished to exterminate, such... CheÅ‚mno concentration camp was a Nazi extermination camp that was situated 70 km from Łódź near a small village CheÅ‚mno nad Nerem (Kulmhof an der Nehr, in German), in Greater Poland (which was, in 1939, annexed and incorporated into Germany under the name of Reichsgau Wartheland). ... Bełżec was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust. ... Sobibór was a Nazi extermination camp that was part of Operation Reinhard. ... Monument at Majdanek Memorial. ... Treblinka was an extermination camp operated by the Nazis as part of the Holocaust, the systematic murder of Jews and others. ... Auschwitz is the name loosely used to identify the largest Nazi extermination camp along with two main German concentration camps and 45-50 sub-camps. ... Other languages FAQs | Table free Welcome to Wikipedia, the free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit. ... Å»ydowski ZwiÄ…zek Walki (Å»ZW, Polish for Jewish Fighting Union) was an underground organisation operating during World War II in the area of Warsaw Ghetto and fighting during Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. ... Ghetto Uprising refers to an armed struggle by people incarcerated in German Ghettos during World War II against the plans to resettle all the inhabitants to concentration and death camps. ... Combatants Nazi Germany Jewish resistance (Å»OB, Å»ZW) Commanders Jürgen Stroop Mordechai Anielewicz Strength 2,054, including 821 Waffen SS 40,000 civilians, 750-1000 fighting Casualties 300 KIA, official reports acknowledge 16 KIA and 85 wounded about 13,000 killed, almost all of the rest sent to extermination camps... Dachau concentration-camp inmates on a death march through a German village in April 1945. ... Berihah (literally escape in Hebrew) was the organized effort to help Jews escape post-Holocaust Europe for the British Mandate of Palestine. ... Sherit ha-Pletah is a biblical (First Chronicles 4:43) term used by Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust to refer to themselves and the communities they formed following their liberation in the spring of 1945. ... Generalplan Ost (GPO) was a Nazi plan to realize Hitlers new order of ethnographical relations in the territories occupied in Eastern Europe during World War II. It was prepared in 1941 and confirmed in 1942. ... Gypsy arrivals in the Belzec death camp await instructions The Porajmos (also Porrajmos) literally Devouring, is a term coined by the Roma (Gypsy) people to describe attempts by the Nazi regime to exterminate most of the Roma peoples of Europe during the Holocaust. ... The German word Gleichschaltung (help· info) (literally synchronising, synchronization) is used in a political sense to describe the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control over the individual, and tight coordination over all aspects of society and commerce. ... 1932 KPD poster, End This System The Communist Party of Germany (in German, Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD) was formed in December of 1918 from the Spartacist League, which originated as a small factional grouping within the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and the International Communists of Germany (IKD). ... Once vibrant Eldorado gay night club in Berlin after being shut down, displaying banners promoting Hitler List 1. Prior to the Third Reich, Berlin was considered a liberal city, with many gay bars, nightclubs and cabarets. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... (help· info) (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 and Führer (Leader) of Germany from 1934 until his death. ... Reinhard Heydrich as SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (March 7, 1904 – June 4, 1942) was an SS-Obergruppenführer, chief of the Reich Main Security Office, and Reich governor of Bohemia and Moravia. ... Adolf Eichmann, Germany 1940 Photo from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives. ... Heinrich Himmler (help· info) (October 7, 1900 – May 23, 1945) was the commander of the German Schutzstaffel (SS) and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany. ... The infamous double-sig rune SS insignia. ... The Deaths Head emblem similar to Skull and crossbones, often used as the insignia of the Gestapo The (help· info) (contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei; secret state police) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... The Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH) is a was a Nazi puppet state founded during World War II when in April 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded by the forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, geographically encompassing most of modern-day Croatia and Bosnia... Presidential flag of Vichy France Vichy France, or the Vichy regime was the de facto French government of 1940-1944 during the Nazi Germany occupation of World War II. Now known in French as the Régime de Vichy or Vichy, during its existence it referred to itself as L... Functionalism versus intentionalism is a historiographical debate about the origins of the Holocaust. ... The Nuremberg Trials were the sets of trials of officials involved in World War II and the Holocaust during the Nazi regime. ... Chief prosecutor Telford Taylor opens the prosecution case in the Krupp Trial The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials (or, more formally, the Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT)) were a series of twelve U.S. military trials for war crimes against surviving members of the military, political, and... There are many famous Holocaust survivors who survived the Nazi genocides in Europe only to go on to achievements of great fame and notability. ... This is a list of people who helped victims to escape from the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, often called rescuers. The list is not exhaustive, concentrating on famous cases, or people who saved the lives of many potential victims. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Czech city Terezin Modified GFDL image from: http://en. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Arbeitmachtfrei_01. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Arbeitmachtfrei_01. ... A concentration camp is a large detention center created for political opponents, enemy aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. ... The Deaths Head emblem similar to Skull and crossbones, often used as the insignia of the Gestapo The (help· info) (contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei; secret state police) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... Fortress plan, 1869 Terezín (German: Theresienstadt) is the name of a former military fortress and garrison town in Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. ...

History

Fortress Terezín was built there between 1780 and 1790. Military and political prisoners were held there beginning early in the 19th century.

On June 10, 1940, the Gestapo took control of Terezín and set up prison in the Small Fortress (kleine Festung), see below. By 24 November 1941, the Main Fortress (grosse Festung, ie the village Theresienstadt) was turned into a walled ghetto. The function of Theresienstadt was to provide a front for the extermination operation of Jews. To the outside it was presented by the Nazis as a model Jewish settlement, but in reality it was a concentration camp. Theresienstadt was also used as a transit camp for Jews en route to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. June 10 is the 161st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (162nd in leap years), with 204 days remaining. ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... November 24 is the 328th day (329th on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ... A ghetto is an area where people from a specific ethnic background or united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... A concentration camp is a large detention center created for political opponents, enemy aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. ... Auschwitz, in English, commonly refers to the Auschwitz concentration camp complex built near the town of Oświęcim, by Nazi Germany during World War II. Rarely, it may refer to the Polish town of Oświęcim (called by the Germans Auschwitz) itself. ... Majdanek - crematorium Extermination camp (German Vernichtungslager) was the term applied to a group of death camps set up by Nazi Germany during World War II for the express purpose of killing the Jews of Europe, although members of some other groups whom the Nazis wished to exterminate, such as Roma...

This camp was established by the head of the SS, Reinhard Heydrich. 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 summer 1942. As a consequence, the Jewish community became a closed environment. The infamous double-sig rune SS insignia. ... Reinhard Heydrich as SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (March 7, 1904 – June 4, 1942) was an SS-Obergruppenführer, chief of the Reich Main Security Office, and Reich governor of Bohemia and Moravia. ...

On 3 May 1945 control of the camp was transferred from the Germans to the Red Cross. Five days later, Terezín was liberated by Soviet troops. May 3 is the 123rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (124th in leap years). ... 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... The Anarchist Black Cross was originally called the Anarchist Red Cross. The band Redd Kross was originally called Red Cross. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Soviet redirects here. ...

People

Theresienstadt was originally planned to house privileged Jews from Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. It was home to many elderly people and was known for its rich cultural life. Some prominent artists from Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Germany were either born in Theresienstadt or found their death there. There were artists, writers, scientists and jurists, diplomats, musicians, and scholars.

The community in Theresienstadt ensured that all the children that passed through continued with their education. Daily classes and sports activities were held and the magazine Vedem was edited there. This affected some 15,000 children, of whom only about 1,100 survived to the end of the war. Other estimates place the number of the surviving children as low as 150. Petr Ginz, the Editor in Chief of Vedem Vedem (In the Lead in Czech) was a Czech-language literary magazine that existed from 1942 to 1944 in the Terezín concentration camp, during the Holocaust. ...

Artist and art teacher Friedl Dicker-Brandeis created drawing classes for children in the ghetto. This activity resulted in the production of over four thousands children's drawings, which Dicker-Brandeis hid in two suitcases before being sent to Auschwitz. This collection was thus preserved from destruction by the Nazis and was not discovered until a decade later. Most of these drawings can now be seen at The Jewish Museum in Prague, whose Archive of Holocaust section is responsible for the administration of the Terezin Archive Collection.

The conditions in Theresienstadt were extremely hard. 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 sibling of Sigmund Freud) who died on September 29, 1942; Friedrich Münzer (a German classicist), who died on October 20, 1942; and two siblings of American politician John Kerry's grandmother. Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud [] (May 6, 1856–September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, based on his theory that human development is best understood in terms of changing objects of sexual desire; that the unconscious often represses wishes (generally of a... September 29 is the 272nd day of the year (273rd in leap years). ... This article is about the year. ... Friedrich Münzer (22 April 1868 - 20 October 1942) was a German classical scholar noted for the development of prosopography, particularly for his demonstrations of how family relationships in ancient Rome connected to political struggles. ... October 20 is the 293rd day of the year (294th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 72 days remaining. ... John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943, Aurora, Colorado) is the junior United States Senator from Massachusetts. ...

Some 500 Jews from Denmark were sent to Theresienstadt in 1943. These were Jews who had not escaped to Sweden before the arrival of the Nazis. The arrival of the Danes is of great significance as the Danes insisted on the Red Cross having access to the ghetto. This was a rare move, given that most European governments did not insist on their fellow Jewish citizens being treated according to some fundamental principles. 1943 (MCMXLIII) is a common year starting on Friday. ...

Used as propaganda tool

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On June 23, 1944, the Nazis permitted the visit by the Red Cross in order to dispel rumours about the exterminations camps. To minimize the appearance of overcrowding in Theresienstadt, the Nazi deported many Jews to Auschwitz. They also erected fake shops and cafés to imply that the Jews lived in relative comfort. The Danes whom the Red Cross visited lived in freshly painted rooms, not more than three in a room. The guests enjoyed the performance of a children's opera, Brundibar, which was written by inmate Hans Krása. ImageMetadata File history File links Theresienstadt_barak. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Theresienstadt_barak. ... Brundibar is the name of an opera by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása. ... Hans Krása, (November 30, 1899 – October 17, 1944), was a Bohemian composer. ...

The hoax against the Red Cross was so successful for the Nazis that they went on to make a propaganda film at Theresienstadt. Shooting of the film began on February 26, 1944. Directed by Kurt Gerron (a director, cabaret performer, and actor who appeared with Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel), it was meant to show how well the Jews lived under the "benevolent" protection of the Third Reich. After the shooting most of the cast, and even the filmmaker himself, were deported to Auschwitz. Gerron and his wife were executed in the gas chambers on October 28, 1944. The film was not released at the time, but was edited into pieces that served their purpose, and only segments of it have remained. February 26 is the 57th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Kurt Gerron ( May 11, 1897 – October 28, 1944 ) was a Jewish actor and film director during the Nazi period. ... Cabaret is a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue — a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting around the tables (often dining or drinking) watching the performance. ... Marlene Dietrich in the 1920s Marie Magdalene Marlene Dietrich (December 27, 1901 – May 6, 1992) also known as Maria Magdalena Dietrich was a German actress, entertainer and singer. ... Blue Angel might be used to refer to several different things: three movies based on Heinrich Manns novel Professor Unrat (1905), about the downfall of a teacher, obsessed with love: The Blue Angel (1930 movie), (in English) starring Marlene Dietrich as Lola, featuring the song Falling in Love Again... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... The gas chamber once used at San Quentin State Prison in California for the purpose of capital punishment. ...

Often called The Führer Gives a Village to the Jews, the correct name of the film is: Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet (Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement). (Cf. Hans Sode-Madsen: The Perfect Deception. The Danish Jews and Theresienstadt 1940–1945. Leo Baeck Yearbook, 1993)

Statistics

Approximately 144,000 Jews were sent to Theresienstadt. About a quarter of them (33,000) died in Theresienstadt, mostly because of the deadly conditions (hunger, stress, and disease, especially the typhus epidemic at the very end of war). About 88,000 were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. When the war finished, there were a mere 19,000 survivors. Stress (roughly the opposite of relaxation) is a medical term for a wide range of strong external stimuli, both physiological and psychological, which can cause a physiological response called the general adaptation syndrome, first described in 1936 by Hans Selye in the journal Nature. ... This is about the disease Typhus. ... In epidemiology, an epidemic (from Greek epi- upon + demos people) is a disease that appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is expected, based on recent experience (the number of new cases in the population during a... Auschwitz, in English, commonly refers to the Auschwitz concentration camp complex built near the town of Oświęcim, by Nazi Germany during World War II. Rarely, it may refer to the Polish town of Oświęcim (called by the Germans Auschwitz) itself. ...

Small Fortress

Small Fortress (Malá pevnost in Czech, Kleine Festung in German) was part of the fortification on left side of river Ohře. Since 1940, Gestapo used it as prison (the largest one in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia). It was separate and unrelated to the Jewish ghetto in the main fortress on the river's right side. Around 90,000 of people arrived there and were usually sent to a concentration camp later. 2,600 people were executed, starved, or succumbed to disease there. OhÅ™e (German: Eger) is a 291 km long river in Germany and the Czech Republic. ... The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (in German: Reichsprotektorat Böhmen und Mähren, in Czech: Protektorát ÄŒechy a Morava) was a German protectorate that arose in central parts of Bohemia and Moravia on March 15, 1939 when Germany invaded the western part of former Czechoslovakia, the former Austrian...

External links

• Terezín Memorial
• Terezín Initiative Institute
• Tours of the Ghetto and Small Fortress
• The Archive of Holocaust at The Jewish Museum in Prague
• [1] Terezín Chamber Music Foundation

Recommended reading

• I Never Saw Another Butterfly
• The Terezin Diary of Gonda Redlich, ISBN 0813118042
• Fortress of My Youth: Memoir of a Terezín Survivor, ISBN 0299178102

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Konzentrationslager Theresienstadt

• Music in Terezin, 1941-1945 by Joza Karas, Pendragon Press, 1990, ISBN 0918728347