Opis

Foreword.

This little book is intended to describe life in the Terezín ghetto from the beginning of November 1941 until its liquidation in July-August 1945. From memory - because documents had to be and were all burned - I will try to describe the most important events as I have experienced and seen them without any exaggeration. As already mentioned, the chronological description cannot claim to be complete in terms of memory only. Should this book achieve the desired success, that is to educate the relatives and friends of those who spent time in the ghetto and to review days of tens of thousands of ghettoized people, additions will be inevitable. The author would welcome experiences from the inmates at the time that are forgotten or not mentioned here, to send them in for a new edition of this book.

Prague, August 1945.

To the East

After the many restrictions, confiscations, and the terrorization of the Jews since the occupation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, rumors spread that Jews were being transported to the East. At the same time, however, 1 or 2 members of the Jewish community had the top secret assignment in Bohemia-Moravia to find a place suitable as a ghetto. In 1941 the new registration began - this time in person. Men, women, children and old people received a summons to report in person to the SS /Central Office for the Emigration of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia/. Crowds of people stood in Střešovice for hours in rain, wind and snowstorms. Family-wise, one went in front of the SS man who put a few short questions /dates of birth/ to one. This ceremony was done in a few seconds. Now they waited to see what would happen. A few days later, the Jewish community began sending out invitations through messengers to contact them. The instructions issued contained orders with a maximum of 50 kg of luggage to report to the collection point in the barracks or building of the Prague fairgrounds for transport to unknown destinations, usually on the third day. Instruction on instruction explained what and how to pack, 1 rucksack, bread sack, bed roll /blanket/ and 1 suitcase per person, 1 work suit, second suit, heavy shoes, winter clothes, etc. What should I take with me to have everything I need to have but not to exceed 50 kg? Should I take more food with me at the other's expense or vice versa? These were serious worries and revelations. One received a number and letter, this one had to hang around the neck - - a piece of cardboard with a balancing act, the same number for luggage. - valuables, money, tobacco products, matches, etc. many other things are forbidden to bring. The objects left behind in the apartment - at that time people were already living in sublets, in mass quarters - that is, the entire inventory of furniture, clothes, linen and other items was registered at the same time and could not be sold or deported elsewhere under threat of severe punishment.

Every day, every hour one was in excited anticipation when the house bell rang. Is it the Gestapo, or an invitation to the community? This is how the nights of the autumn months of 1941 were spent, because most of the actions of the SD/Special Service/ or the SS /Gestapo/ took place during the night to increase the effect.

The search for suitcases, rucksacks, bowls, sleeping bags, packing material, etc. was tremendous. Soon the shops that one was allowed to visit between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. were sold out.

The first transport arrives! Heavily laden, the first people walk or take the electric tram to get to the Messepalais (fairgrounds). The Jews are only allowed to drive in the trailer car or on the rear platform of a motor vehicle or electric tram. The starred were not allowed to use any other means of transport. Which and how much difficulties to get to the collection point arose with the overcrowded electricals, on Sundays or on non- working days traffic started late in the morning, but you had to be there on time. From the distant parts of the city, the first columns of emigrants moved for hours on foot, with the sewn-on name tags, for example A 777 NN, on the luggage.

Usually they were crammed man, woman, children in makeshift mass accommodation for 2-3 days with roll call at all hours of the night and day, visits by the SS, handing in valuables, handing in signatures with which one voluntarily pledges one's entire property, whether mobile or immobile, for the benefit of the German Reich, filled the hours spent at the collection point. Slaps in the face, blows, light blocking and the like, because of one or no offense at all, sweetened the uncertain last hours. Of the approximately 1050 people who were called up, 1000 were designated as fit for transport and were numbered accordingly. Those not selected were allowed to wait for the next transport. Usually on the third night, the deportation began at midnight. In the darkness, in any weather, columns were formed by SS and police guarded the march on the station. The loading of 50-60 and more people in bad people - or freight wagons took a few hours. Blocked roads, the area around the collecting station and the train station prevented any communication with the outside world from the entrance to the Messepalais to the wagon. The first 5,000 from Prague and 1,000 from Brno left in November 1941 for Lodž. The transport list was put together in advance with all the deception method directives from the main headquarters of the BerlinSDpoint for Jewish emigration were transport. If the first transport was composed in alphabetical order of the rich, house and industrial owners, the second mostly of lawyers, the third a mixture of so-called rich and poor, the other transports were always composed of younger people to those 60-65 years old, but always with a thorough deception. Nobody should know or find out when they will get it.

At the end of November, 350 younger men were asked to be transported to Theresienstadt to equip themselves with equipment, shovels, and possibly a portable oven. Volunteers are invited. This so-called construction command AK as it is known, is supposed to prepare Theresienstadt for a ghetto. Promises such as return after a few weeks, mail postage, other connections with relatives, weekly courier service with Prague, etc. similar things are given. You like everything - so also this, according to this lie of its time. So the building pioneers without women and children in Prague, leave late November, this time with the destination known. The next 2 transports of 1,000 each from Prague and Brno, which were destined for the east, were redirected to Theresienstadt. On December 4th, another 1000 men, designated as AK II, left Prague. On the same day, the so-called staff of 20 men and 4 women traveled separately to Theresienstadt. On the same evening 2 Gestapo appear asking for a person by the name of Zeckendorf. In a few minutes the person asked after will be taken away. One less member of the staff. Later one learns the fate: Executed as a communist.

The almost 200 year old military fortress Terezín /Theresienstadt/ barely ¾ square kilometers is about 2-½ km away from the Bohušovice / Bauschowitz train station. Surrounded by ramparts and ditches with 8-12 metres long walls

and moats, it has a gate each, the only entrances and exits. 6 one- and two-storey barracks, military hospital, food depot, military bakery, building yard and around 170 small one-storey houses 100 and more years old, built in blocks south-north-west-east in a straight line, so that one overlooks the small military town from one end to the other. Old, unfashionable houses, to which no new buildings have been added in the last 40 years, mostly without water pipes, a few with electric light, accommodates 3300 civil residents, mostly military pensioners, craftsmen, some shops. The barracks were intended for a garrison of 8,000 to 3,000 soldiers. Since Maria Theresia under which the fortress was built, it served mostly as the headquarters of a brigade in old Austria, in the Czechoslovak Republic and since 1939 the for the German Wehrmacht. Infantry, cavalry, artillery, pioneers, medical services, provisions for catering, a divisional court and a brigade or division general were the main residents. The civilian population fed on the permanent garrison. The town around which the river Eger /Ohře/ flows was the border of the so-called Sudeten or border region. To the north, 6 km to the west are the towns of Litoměřice /Leitmeritz/ and Lovosice /Lobositz/. The Ohře /Eger/ flowing around from the south and east flows 2 km. from Theres. to the Elbe directly in Leitmeritz. Barely 600 m to the east one arrives over the lock mill to the small fortress which in peacetime is a military prison for a maximum of 300-500 people, and under the occupation houses tens of thousands of civilian prisoners with an average number of 5000 housed and in which tens of thousands of victims of Nazism are tortured and find death.

The first 3,500 Jews came to the Sudeten barracks, which were not named by the Germans. A 2-story house, originally a pioneer barracks with a courtyard, stables, large halls with cement floors on the second floor - were occupied with people using every corner. Empty rooms and walls, dirt, no inventory, no tools at all and the cold December were the first impressions of the people who were deported here. On the bare floor, up to 500 people lay in a hall; men, women and the children together. At the entrance to the gendarmerie, next to this detention cell, the high rampart on three sides, the exit side fenced with a high wall and barbed wire, should serve as accommodation for the thousands of people. The former military kitchen - brick hearth with no kettle, no bench, chair or the like - everything taken away from the German military a few days earlier. As far as washing facilities, a washing chamber with a few taps exists, but lack of water and the necessary pressure mean that only the well in the courtyard can help the inmates, but first and foremost you need water for the kitchen. A kettle with a capacity of 300 l is set up and the Menage for 3-⅓ thousand people is to be cooked here. A black unsweetened substitute coffee in the morning, late in the afternoon after standing in line for a few hours you get some turnip for lunch. Coffee late in the evening. The food supplies you have brought with you must help for the first few days, until a replenishment is possible. The AK people work day and night. At night, they organize and create the first benches, tables etc. out of nothing. Work columns under the leadership of the gendarmerie are led out of the barracks in military formation to do that. The civilian population, under threat of severe punishment, with bowed heads and shy eyes, is not allowed to feed passing Jews.

The Jewish elder Edelstein and his deputy, Ing. Zucker, will give orders to the camp headquarters as soon as they arrive at the barracks. In the former building of the division general on the market square next to the garrison church, SD - Obersturmführer Dr. Seidl, a Viennese, Untersturmführer Bergel and about 10 other SD u. SS people who decide our life and death settle in.

The first shock? Women and children up to 10 years of age have to be removed from the Sudeten barracks and separated from the men. Boys over 10 years stay with the men. For how long? Will we

meet again? Those are the thoughts and questions of the fearful barracks internees. The first crucial task of the authority must be carried out in a short time. The few belongings are packed together in families. What and how should I share this? The child should never see the father or mother again? I can’t survive, I die rather voluntarily, one should shoot me or whatever are the sighing cries of mothers and women. One tries with all means to calm things down, the crying of the women and children is indescribable. The first revolution: the Jewish elder is stormed, the small room in which the entire staff officiates on suitcases is besieged by the women. The gendarmerie warns and demands immediate calm and order, because the consequences of an SS visit in this situation would be incalculable. The ghetto guard intervenes for the first time. Hundreds of women are lined up and a tripartite deputation is supposed to negotiate with the Jewish elders. It is already dark, the excitement will be alleviated in a short time by the promised intervention and negotiation. The deputation demands that the Jewish elder immediately annul the ordered separation of families. Edelstein, the clever politician to whom the negotiations with the SS are nothing new, because for two years as head of the Palestine Office in Prague he was not only in the first Jewish camp in Nisko, which lasted only a few weeks, but was offered a sufficient preview for the coming Jewish camps as he had also been sent to Holland by the SS authorities in order to create a Jewish organization based on the Prague model. In Prague he was one of the most important spokesmen for the many Prague citizens who had to speak with the Central Office every day. He already had sufficient experience with an SS order to explain that, You have to go to the commandant's office today was the demand of the deputation. E. knew that changing or canceling the order is not ruled out today or tomorrow. I am now going to the headquarters and will present your wishes and bitters. After half an hour, E came back - the camp commander today would not receive him today.- In reality, he had never left the barracks because he could not leave the barracks without police escort or without an order of the camp command. The whole night was filled with thoughts of what the morning would bring, nobody thought of sleeping. In the morning, Edelstein and Zucker are ordered to the headquarters, as foreseen no change can be achieved - in the afternoon the women and children have to move to the Dresden barracks that have been vacated by the military. Columns loaded with rucksacks and the like are formed under the guard of the gendarmerie and ghetto guard. The sad train starts moving and wanders through the city to the barracks 10 minutes away. It takes a few hours before the last women and children reach their new home. As in the Sudeten barracks, so it is in this much larger and oldest barracks with 3 courtyards. Empty, cold rooms, many forgot to take this and that out of the man's suitcase, the second sleepless night.

Over the next few days work, plaster and other columns formed among the men to provide the helpless women the essentials in their barracks and help there. Everyone wants to see their wife child etc. It doesn't work, because only 30-50 men are supposed to do this service in the mornings and afternoons. The commandant's office promotes workers for this and that. An attempt is being made to introduce a rotation so that everyone can get to the Dresden barracks as quickly as possible. The gendarmerie turns a blind eye and they manage to order several times a day. But this joy of meeting is not complete. Talking to the women and children is only possible for a few minutes and one is under constant danger, because an SS man could appear at any moment, the sexes must remain separate - that is the order. Any meeting in a courtyard let alone in a room is a criminal offense. And then a man who is just saying goodbye to his wife and child in the courtyard is seen by the SD man. Some punches and carting off for arrest is the end of this innocent day.

Every little thing, whether infringement or only the arbitrariness of an SS man, in violation of the distributed camp regulations results in slaps, kicks and arrests on a daily basis.

The first roll call! All men of the Sudeten barracks in the courtyard, is the order. In a few minutes all inmates will gather in Carré am Hof. The U St. Bergel gives a speech about his hard and good hearts. Woe to him if he had to show his hard heart. 1 hour of joint and running exercises are carried out to warm up. The staff stands in front of the Carré and is also busy practicing. Freddy Hirsch - graduate of the University of Physical Culture in Berlin - a splendid boy and sportsman is our instructor. The elderly and frail men could no longer hold out after the first minute of steps. The good heart of the SS graciously states that men over 50 years of age do not have to continue running.

The AK /work commando/ was allowed to post cards and receive packages from relatives - 30 words with hulkovým písmem! However, the contents of the postal packages once a month were very limited. Tobacco goods, medication, music or other instruments, candles, lamp alcohol, soap, electr. batteries, newspapers, toothpaste and many other things were forbidden. It was even contraband. Every package was strictly revised, apart from the contraband also otherwise robbed. Of course, any written communication in the package was prohibited. Any violation of this camp arrangement resulted in severe penalties. Any other connection with the outside world or even connection with an Aryan was forbidden. But this concession only lasted a few days. All postalconnections werebanned even before Christmas. The packages already in Th. were returned to sender. These necessary bites - you were starving - spoiled or did not reach the sender at all. Reason: black letters have been sent or received.

The first attempts to escape. A young person has disappeared. The departure was determined during the evening count at 9 p.m. The records had to report the exact status of the ghetto inmates at 9:30 p.m. to the gendarmerie, which kept the barracks cordoned off. Large investigation. The SS, the gendarmerie and the ghetto guards searched the night and the next few days for the disappeared. The young man succeeded. After months he reported indirectly from Switzerland - he was saved.

The first dead: The first victims are subject to the unfamiliar hardships. The first dilapidated room, a poorly lit barracks room, is full of sick men and children. Some straw sacks are the first furniture. In a few days simple beds of boorish wood are timbered - two bunks high, there are few medications. Pneumonia and many other diseases are on the rise. But there is no improvement in the diet, only black unsweetened coffee, soup, cod and rotten potatoes. The few saved scraps have been brought out, there are no parcels from home.

The dead can be buried late in the evening. The unplaned coffins are loaded onto a two-wheeled cart. Five men accompanied by a gendarmerie with a candle lantern lead the first dead over bumpy, snow-covered fields at night - which tens of thousands are supposed to follow to a field outside the ghetto next to the Russian cemetery where thousands of Russian prisoners of war from the First World War found their resting place. It took hours to dig the first graves in the frozen ground.

Roll call: Everyone gathers in the courtyard of the Sudeten barracks. The Camp Commandant SD Obersturmführer Dr Seidl, a 31 year old Viennese who we will describe in more detail, appears with SD Untersturmführer Bergl. Letters from the ghetto have been sent through Aryans - these are the first words. Some Aryans have already been arrested, everyone

who has sent a letter should report - impunity is assured. 3 minutes to think about it: Otherwise the heaviest punishments for the whole ghetto will follow. Two men step forward and volunteer that they have sent letters to their relatives. As it turned out later, the letters from these two were not intercepted at all. Like every promise made by the SS, the promise of impunity in this case was a lie. With their deaths, three volunteers paid for their duty to protect the rest of the ghetto from the already known methods of the SS in a short time. In the ghetto, martial law is imposed, every correspondence, every attempt to escape, etc. other things are punished with death.

Transports from the Protectorate roll in almost every day. 1000-3000 people are transported from Prague, Brno, etc. to Theresienstadt. The two barracks are no longer sufficient, so gradually more barracks, such as the Hohenelber - former garrison hospital -, the Hamburg, Magdeburg, Hanover, and Jäger are assigned to the ghetto. The same everywhere as with the first barracks assignment. Dirt and empty rooms. Help yourself as you can. Everyone works day and night to make the roof over their heads more or less bearable for those arriving. But the SS has its instructions, from Prague or Berlin resp. with thoroughness and pre-established guidelines, the ruthless extermination of the Jews would be initiated and carried out with all refinement and with the aid of science. The first monthly report on the activities in the ghetto by the camp authorities to Prague and Berlin says in part: In order to avoid the proliferation of Jews - understand destruction - the accommodation of the sexes, the reduction of food to the smallest number of calories and so on was ordered. The staff usually works at night in a small room and issues the orders of the day, these are orders from the camp administration.

Before Christmas, the Jewish elder /Edelstein/ received the order to move his staff from the Sudeten barracks. The staff is supposed to separate itself from the ghetto inmates, establish its own kitchen, etc. Edelstein rejects the latter under various excuses, whereupon the camp commandant calls him a communist. But the eloquent Edelstein, experienced in dealing with the SS, knows how to convince the camp commandant. He selected not the SS-offered building but the Magdeburg barracks for the staff. I want to disappear into the hustle and bustle with the others, otherwise the SS will sniff away at us in our own building, this is how he explains its position on the segregation of the staff.

The communication between the barracks and the connection between the relatives is very difficult due to the separation of the sexes. Passes are issued by the camp office to those people who may have to visit one or the other barracks on a daily basis. The management or the council of elders into which the staff was converted makes suggestions to the camp administrator about each individual case. There are party leaders with so many men who can lead the work groups from one barracks to another under the supervision of a gendarmerie or ghetto guard. So you help the barracked to see each other and speak from time to time.

New Year's Eve 1941. The young people want to celebrate New Year's Eve in captivity, secretly and despite all the dangers. Some daredevils from the civilian population even smuggle a few bottles of alcohol into the barracks. The gendarmerie helps and turns a blind eye. In return, the SS celebrated true orgies in their home with invited guests from the SS from Prague, Berlin and the Small Fortress. Fighting among the SS is the result. The Lord Camp Commandant gets some punches from his subordinates: the pack that fights, gets along! On New Year's Day, the still drunk Lagercher rides early through the streets.

January 7, 1942. Transports are going to the East - rumor has it among the ghetto inmates. The camp commandantur ordered that on January 9th, 1000 will go east. According to the given directives, the transport is put together at night and the persons designated for this are informed that they will have to present themselves early on the 9th in the courtyards of the barracks in which they are housed. From midnight - there is no sleep - the barracked are up. There are 23 ° below zero of cold! From 3 a.m. onwards, the transport participants with the transport number - cardboard paper hung around their neck - are collected at the courtyard and divided into groups of 50-80 people. Half frozen and in the dark, the groups, accompanied by gendarmes and ghetto guards, set off to the Bauschowitz /Bohušovice/ train station from 6 a.m. A sad picture to see the people waiting in the snow with small children in hand, with rucksacks and all kinds of loads scattered along the three kilometers of road. This route takes 1 ½ - 2 hours. The loading into unheated cattle wagons for 50-70 people is carried out within a few hours. The wagons are sealed. After many hours of waiting, the train sets off towards Dresden - destination unknown. Later we find out indirectly that it was going to Riga.

But the afternoon of January 9th 1942 brought a second sad surprise. The council of elders is ordered to go to the commandant's office. Under threat of the death penalty, they are told to maintain silence and are told that the next day several prisoners will be sentenced to death by hanging. A double gallows is to be set up in the trench of the Aussiger barracks and SS coffins are to be prepared. Nobody is allowed to find out about this order, that's the order. Everything has to be prepared by 9 a.m. More orders follow - go away! The council of elders leaves the headquarters and deliberates in the Magdeburg barracks. A terrible session! The head of the ghetto guard is called to the Jewish elders. Under oath he receives the order ropes to tie together hands and feet and the like, and to prepare 3 nooses for the coming victims. 1. commandant with 10 ghetto guards will help with the execution. This order may only be announced early in the morning. The head of the technical department also has to prepare the gallows coffins and a mass grave right next to the gallows by morning. A working group digs the grave the whole night in the frozen ground under the supervision of the SS, another concerns himself with the preparation of the gallows. In the room of the head of the ghetto guard, the ropes for the hands and feet are tied together from short hemp because there is nothing else there! But where did the nooses for the execution come from? Nobody, besides a few workers, should learn anything about it, and even they don't know for whom everything is intended.

So the night is passed sleepless by the initiated. At 6 o'clock in the morning the ghetto guard gathers in one of their rooms, where the head of the ghetto guard announces the order given to him in the evening to provide 11 men to help with the execution and calls on volunteers to do so. Lots of former soldiers, most of whom participated in the First World War, stand in front of their commandant and look at him questioningly, not a word falls from the ranks. The commandant explains it must be and you must execute this order from the SS against the victims as a final camaraderie. The first volunteer steps forward and asks for comrades to join, the firing squad is composed of volunteers and ordered to report at 9 am at the particular location of Ústí barracks at SD - USTF. At 7:30 in the morning SD Untersturmführer Bergel - completely drunk -

appears in the Magdeburg barracks and has the Jewish elder called. A short consultation follows and Bergel leaves the barracks. The head of the ghetto guard is appointed as the Jewish elder. The Jewish elder /Edelstein/ his deputy Ing. Zucker and the head of the ghetto guard are gathered in the small room. Edelstein says to the latter: At ½ ten o'clock you have to bring up two individuals with vile repute as executioners. This is the command I just received from UStf. Bergel and to whom you have to report to the execution office. A short, wordless pause. Who am I to call the most foul and who should I expect them to do? Asks the head of the ghetto guard. A long debate is now unfolding. One ponders back and forth to whom to entrust this terrible task. Time is running out and it is almost nine o'clock. If you don't go soon and get the hangman on board in time, Bergel will entrust you with the hangman's task or shoot you, says Edelstein to the head of the ghetto guard.

Meanwhile, as ordered, the buildingelders of the barracks assemble in front of the room of the Jewish elder, because both they and the council of elders must be present as spectators for the gruesome act.

Both the civilian population and the barracked ghetto inmates were forbidden from entering the streets and courtyards at night, and from lingering by the windows. All streets are manned by the gendarmerie to monitor the strict orders of the camp authorities.

The head of the ghetto guard asks the building elder of the Sudeten barracks /there are several thousand men/ to accompany him.

The 2 stepped out of the barracks gate.

Fog, empty streets and windows, only the patrolling gendarmes can be seen. Icy cold - it's way below 20 ° below.

Do you know what I'm thinking about? We will call all the butchers of the Sudeten barracks together and ask for two people to do the terrible job as volunteers, because they could most likely take on such a job and not torture the victims. That was the only exchange between the two of them.

Right at the entrance to the Sudeten barracks is the gendarmerie and ghetto guard room and next to it the fully filled detention rooms. Besides the normal guard, 15 gendarmes are gathered in the guard room. The suspect, what is to come, but those doomed to death do not know anything!

The guard room of the ghetto guard is cleared, while the building elder alerts the butchers. In a few minutes eight men appear in the guard room.

How old are you? Seventeen! And you? Eighteen! And you? Sixty. You three can go away, says the head of the ghetto guard. Five men remain. I have a sad message but also an urgent request for you! Some of our comrades have been sentenced to die by hanging. The sentence will be carried out at 10 a.m. and two of you must carry it out. I am to appoint the two most foul of the ghetto individuals for this purpose, that is the order of the USTführer Bergel. I cannot carry out this order. But I ask you voluntarily to take on this terrible task. All pale. I am diabetic and have 2 small children, I was in the World War, I have several medals for bravery, and afterwards I was a police sergeant, but I cannot take on this task! So nothing remains but to draw lots. The four names are thrown in pieces in the hat - it should determine the lot! At this moment a short, broad-shouldered, almost overgrown man enters. I should report here, what is it? After repeating the intended task, the man says: I'll take on this. What kind of hanging is it? This or that. I was originally in the anatomical pathological institute, and later an assistant to the hangman in Czechoslovakia. Now he asks a young 22 year old man to take over the work with him. He doesn't need to do much, because I'll do the most important things myself, says the voluntary executioner. After some hesitation and persuasion,

the young man decides to help. Horrible minutes of this conversation.

It is a few minutes before ½ 10 a.m. The 3 volunteers, 2 ghetto guards and the head of the ghetto guard leave the Sudeten barracks.

The first gendarme stopped the group. Where? Popravčí četa is the hangman's answer. The gendarme lets the group through and signals the next gendarmerie post to let the 5 through. On the way the executioner demands from the Ustf. Bergel 1 bottle of rum and chewing tobacco after the execution, because he'll need that to calm down afterwards. The Ustf. knows me because I was with him in the Small Fortress on the same matter, the hangman continues. The group arrives at the gallows on time. Mr. Ustf. I'm bringing 2 volunteers reports the head of the ghetto guard. Bravo! is the answer of the half-drunk SD UStführer.

The ghetto guard is busy with the preparatory work, outside in front of the Aussiger barracks stands the council of elders and the building elders, who will attend the sad act as spectators. Now 9 convicts are marching, escorted by 15 gendarmes, and placed in the trench. In the next few minutes a group of SD from the Stmbf Günter of Prague, the camp commandant. Dr. Seidl and his chauffeur SS man the district administrator of Kladno will come. Dr. Seidl waves to the council of elders to follow behind his group. Both groups line up near the nine victims, after which the camp commander reads the following: Upon order of the Commander of the Security Service of Bohemia and Moravia, the following Jews are sentenced to death by hanging because of abuse against the German Reich. The SS and the Council of Elders go to the execution site, which is around the corner from where those assembled are standing. Right next to the Schanzengraben wall is the prepared mass grave, in front of it the double gallows. Apart from the ghetto guard and the 2 groups mentioned above, no one is a witness, no gendarme is allowed to be in the vicinity.

In the terrible cold, the condemned are stripped down to their shirts and pants and their hands are tied and they are put in pairs

They did not collapse, but received the judgment with firm courage. One says: I have only written to my grandmother, whereupon the others called out: Be quiet and do not hurt our honor! A second asks: take my wedding ring and greet my wife. The faces of the guarding gendarmes are pale, you can see tears in their eyes - but they are not allowed to speak. When the victims approach the council of elders, the command vpravo hleď čest Vám a popraveným can be heard from among them. One of them sings the song of Voskovec a Werich Když nás půjdou miliony Before the gallows someone said: S tímto tu válku nevyhrajete, a second to whom an SS man says: Well, you cowardly dog, come on replies: I'm not cowardly like you, just innocent and puts the noose around his neck.

Nebojíme se, že zemřeme, ale válku nevyhrajou and such other remarks follow in front of the gallows. Unbroken, with their heads held high, one pair after the other stand in front of the gallows. The rope breaks at the first victim and the man falls to the ground. The executioner reports: Mr. Camp Commandant, the sentence is carried out according to the law. One movement with the riding whip - up! is the answer. When the first corpse made a few more reflex twitches after a few minutes, one of the SS pulled out his pistol and fired 5 rounds into the corpse. Now the corpse is in the mass grave /without the ordered 25 coffins this order should only be a gesture or nerve whipping for the population/ the next SD man fires another 5 shots into the corpse in the grave.

This gruesome act lasted almost 3 hours before the last man - half frozen to death - was dragged onto the gallows. The SS talked to one another while smoking. The council of elders, freezing in rank and file, had to play spectators.

When the 9 victims in the mass grave were almost shoveled under by the ghetto guard, the group of SS and d. Council of Elders left.

The gendarmerie rushes out and lines up with the ghetto guard on K poctě zbraň; the command of the gendarmerie guard sounds.

Now they are facing the first victims of the gallows. The gendarmerie leaves the place with watering eyes before an SS man returns.

The clothes and shoes of the executed had to be taken to the commandant's office.

What was the abuse of the German Reich? One had sent his grandmother greetings and written something about food, one wanted to buy gingerbread in a shop, so he took off the Jewish star, which was called an attempted escape attempt, some made an attempt to escape /they were still in Theresienstadt when they were arrested/ another was in the courtyard of the barracks without noticing an SS man behind him, waiting for a group of workers and was suddenly called by the SS man. He turned around and inadvertently brushed the SS man with his elbow. Active resistance as it was referred to. Those were the reasons for death by hanging.

Frozen and trembling, the council of elders returned to the barracks around noon. In the rooms of the Jewish elders a prayer is done for the deceased.

Now you have to notify relatives, the wife, the mother of one or the other executed person. Both are in the Dresden barracks, women's barracks from which you can see directly into the Schanzengraben, the scene of the murder. But nobody is allowed to go to the window. So a doctor is assigned to give these two the message. The others don't have their next of kin here yet - they'll find out later.

At 4 p.m. all the elders gather first men and then the women in a hall of the Magdeburg barracks for roll call. When the Ustf. Bergel enters the hall, the Jewish elder announces the execution of the death sentences and directs an appeal to the elders, to which the SS Obstf. adds a few words stating that this is the camp commandant's first example of deterrence, to be followed by others if the camp regulations are not strictly observed. About this, the order of the day No. 33 of January 10, 1942 reads:

Nine inmates of the Jewish ghettos were convicted and sentenced to die by hanging by arrangement of the Commander of the Security Service. The judgment was carried out today against the following persons:

Gross Josef

Teichmann Salomon

Löwit Arnošt

Dr. Stransky Jaroslav

Grab Jiří's

Masarek Pavel

Schiller Julius

Jetel Jindrich

Weinberg Ota

Roll call of the elders: 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

On Saturday, January 10th, a roll call of the elders took place in the presence of the official representatives. On this occasion, reports of the execution of the death sentence were reported to 9 people. The elders were made aware of their duties and asked, with all their energy and perseverance to ensure unconditional compliance with all regulations. It was particularly imposed on them to make camp inmates aware of the scope of the offenses, such as mail smuggling and attempted escape, in order to avoid further tragic consequences.

The Council of Elder

/ mp /

Theresienstadt, January 10, 1942. On behalf of the Dr. Janowitz /mp/

And again long transports that experienced the terrible thing as of January 10th. One can get into the soul of the newcomer, however he may find these reports confirmed when he arrives in the ghetto, because they have already seeped through in Prague and elsewhere.

January 15, 1942, brings another transport from the ghetto to Riga. As on the 9th, the same scenes take place in the same cold.

Every day brings something new, of course unpleasant. The Jews must be held in constant motion, excitement and fear.

One day the SS Untersturmführer appears with a stick in the guard room of the ghetto guard in the Sudeten barracks and chooses 3 strong men. In the guard room of the gendarmerie, which has to be evacuated, the detainees are called in at the discretion of the SS man and dealt 25 firm blows with the cane. The ghetto guards are threatened - they will shrink a head - if they announce anything about it. From now on, this flogging will be a constant introduction. Usually the man with the good and hard heart arrives drunk to enjoy the corporal punishment. Many a ghetto guard is removed from the ghetto guard and even punished with 25 or possibly more strokes of the cane because he didn’t hit vigorously.

Outside the barracks, on the street, women and men are stopped by the SS and searched for their handbags or parcels and subjected to a physical check to ensure that they have no prohibited items, tobacco products, letters, etc. with them. Every little thing or violation of the camp rules ends with a beating and months of arrest. While the menhave beenimprisoned in the Sudeten barracks and the women in the Dresden barracks, the order comes to build a bunker in the basement of the camp headquarters. The former ice cellar of the Restoration (Záložna) in which the headquarters is located, is quickly converted into a bunker, a dark detention center, etc. No heating, no toilet. The bunker is not a sanatorium is the saying of the SD Ustf. Bergel when the engineer carrying out the work draws his attention to the deficiency, especially the lack of heating. In this bunker prisoners from the commandant's office, the Gestapo, come because of special offenses. Most go out of the Small Fortress - chosen for death. What ailments, were inflicted in these bunkers, because there was no medical help here, a book would fill up, without clothes etc. bedclothes, without food and water for days, some were tortured to death here. At night the body was secretly removed. Cause of death: heart attack - was entered in the registry.

Almost every day a transport comes from the protectorate or one of at least 1,000 people goes to the east. One speaks of Ispica, Lublin, etc.

The barracks are overcrowded by the ghettoized, a large part of them have to live on the floors, because every little place is used as a sleeping place. Without beds, without mattresses or straw sacks, only a few of them are temporarily available, the camp inmates sleep on cold floors, many of them in rooms such as stables, warehouses and the like on the bare cement floor. In the Sudeten barracks there are halls, former warehouses - where up to 500 men have to live on damp, even wet ground.

The 10th of January was hardly forgotten and there is already a repetition. On 26 February another 7 victims are, under the same measures and at the same place, justified by the gallows. Again a mass grave, the same spectators, the same basic abuse of the German Reich. Just like the first of January 10, the 7 die unbroken, heroically. They are: Feder Hanuš, Klein Karel, Freud Pavel, Winternitz Jindřich, Fantl Rudolf, Morgenstern Pavel a Preisler František, nejmladší byl 30, nejstarší 41 let. 1Note 1: "The youngest was 30 years, the oldest 41 year old"; This information is not accurate. The youngest was 19 year old, the oldest 40 years old.

In the former home for the officers - the genius building - on the market square, a commission from various ministries meets constantly. Members of the Theresienstadt community buy their homes from the civilians. The Jew. Emigration Fund - these are the confiscated funds, houses,

etc. of the Jews, it pays the civilian residents who are to leave their decades-long residence by April to make room for the ghetto. Posters and calls from the local government urge the civilian population to clear their houses and to move to the apartments reserved for them in the Protectorate, because otherwise they will not be able to obtain apartments from the authorities after the set deadline. However, the evacuation dragged on until the end of June 1943. At that point, tens of thousands of people were crammed into barracks where normally 3000-5000 soldiers lived. Transports from Ostmark /Austria/ and Germany began in May 1943, mostly older people. The first transport from Vienna, the participants of which were concentrated in a collection camp for 14 days, brings old people totally lousy. Another transport from Cologne a/Rh brings people in a miserable physical condition, and the first cases of typhus are recorded. In addition to the already existing infectious diseases of children, tuberculosis and others, there is now typhus. There is no hospital yet, so the infectiouspatients have to be concentrated in some rooms in the barracks. There is a lack of medication. One tries to contain or limit the infections. Only the courtyards of the barracks are available to the barracked thousands of people. The warm weather, traffic jams, the narrow pavement - there is hardly 1 m2 of space available per person - rapidly increase the number of deaths. The little and bad food - bad accommodation and the like, and the isolation from the world begin to take effect. Malnutrition drives many old people to despair, suicides of all kinds are increasing - more and more every day. This fits into the SS commandant's program, because the extermination of the Jews is picking up pace, as the monthly reports of the camp commandant to Prague and Berlin show.

The transports from Germany and Austria, which now arrive almost daily, are awaited at the train station in Bauschowitz by a group of workers, the ghetto guard and, last but not least, the gendarmerie and SS. Overtired, starved and thirsty - most of the old people are happy to have arrived at their new home after the days of transport. There are corpses in every car, many of them cannot be identified and so on, so they are buried unknown.

The 3 km long way to Theresienstadt is arduous for people laden with the rest of their belongings. Hundreds stop on the way and many of them pay with their death. The SS urge the poor souls to take faster steps. From the many questions about whether a room with a bathroom or even 3 rooms for which you have paid can be obtained, we learn with which lies the Berlin highest SS authority for Jewish emigration ensured that those who left their homeland escaped without the last of their cash. Printed matter in which the transport participant confirmed that with so and so many thousands, say ten thousand marks, they had purchased free and lifelong accommodation, meals, etc. in Theresienstadt. The people paid millions of marks into the fund in order to then spend their lives in mass quarters and wait for starvation. When we got our hands on the first written agreement, in which 80 and more thousand marks were paid in by individuals, the Jewish elder reported this to the camp commandant. I will report it to Berlin and let you know, is the answer. Yes, the council of elders is even informed that from this fund and another fund amounting to over 100 million, 5 Mk. Per person and Month in the ghetto Th. will be made available. It is calculated that from these 5 Mk so and so many people can be received, because all the food and accommodation - the latter is the most expensive - you pay 1 Krone per person per day - 1 Krone to the German state for accommodation in the barracks, which remains military property and not like the private houses that can be bought, and hardly cost 4 kroner a day. Of course, the ghetto did not see a penny of the money and it remained in the Nazis' cash register or pocket.

The ghetto is mostly filled with older people and the majority are now from Germany and Austria. Including many foreigners who have lived in Germany. Exact evidence and statistics are created. Card files according to age, occupation, status, etc. are kept in hundreds of thousands. The circa 30 SD men employed at the commendantur have to show their work. For this they are conveniently used in Th. and don't have to go to the front. They are also rewarded for this through advancement.

Lidice. On May 10th 2Note 2: June 10th, the camp administrator orders that 30 young men be equipped immediately with shovels, staples and the like and be ready in the Sudeten barracks. In the afternoon a truck drives the Lgkmdt. and 2 gendarmes, summoned the 30 men and drove off with them. Nobody knows where or for what. After 1 - ½ days the group of workers returns tired, sleepless, with bloody hands and the like. Sultry back. Quite apathetic, not answering a request directed at them, they go to sleep in their ubiquities. On the order of the Lgkmdt. they may say nothing where they were and what they have experienced. The secret cannot be hidden for long. The smuggled newspapers carry the official announcement about the Lidice drama. Now the boys can tell their comarads about their experiences.

After a few hours' drive they came to a burning village surrounded by SS. The gendarmes are not allowed to accompany the 30 men. The camp commandant takes over the management with some SS. Around 180 corpses of men lie behind a barn. And now began the work as ordered. Under the knot of Lgrkmdt. a mass grave was dug. Without a break, without food, under constant threats of lashes and the like they worked for 36 hours. For lighting at night, stakes made of furniture, doors, etc. other wood from the houses of the village was set on fire. In the 12 x 9 m and 4 m deep mass grave, the corpses are first settled next to each other, but later only thrown in. Shoes and clothes are taken from the victims, as are the contents of the pockets. Money disappears in the pockets of the SS. Now lime is thrown in at the end by the drunken SS u. Gestapo, who from the found supplies of food and alcohol had held a joyous meal on the spot the whole time, threw 2 shot dogs in afterwards.

Sheep, goats, geese and other livestock from Lidice are driven to the ghetto Theresienstadt. The camp commandatur set up an agriculture from which the SS authorities for the Jewish emigration from Prague and Berlin are supplied, which will be mentioned later.

At the end of June 1942, the Aryan population of Th. had to leave, so that all civilian houses could be cleared in July. The houses are assembled in blocks. The walls between the courtyards are folded down so that the houses in each block form a unit. One or two entrances may be used for a block so that monitoring etc. is easier. The way from the camp office to the SS Kamaradenschaftsheim, where the SS lives, is delimited by barbed wire and may not be used by Jews, which is why the entrances and exits to the blocks are restricted.

The population, of course, takes everything. Even things that are riveted and nailed down come along. The houses are in a desolate state with the fewest containing electr. light or a water pipe, there are also no stoves as they were taken along for the coming winter. Vermin, rats multiply rapidly. The internal organization such as management, internal administration, healthcare, tech. department, etc. is expanding day by day. The houses are assigned to the incoming transports and every smallest space used for shelter. But the small town, which was previously intended for 3,000 - 35,000 inhabitants, is not enough with either water or hygienic facilities. The water from the wells needs to be distributed. Latrines in the oven and barracks cellars etc. need to be expanded. The waterworks that operate the electricity fails, so electricity is often lacking.

The kitchens don't have enough water. Lunch and supper often change their mood. Young men and women are trained in mines or for forest work outside of Th. All kinds of branches of production, most of the army administration, are expanded, but just as many workshops and art studios are set up in which the most beautiful objects are produced. There are so many artists here, manufacturers, craftsmen available to the German government without paying - because this will be charged on paper. Of course, for the SS in the ghetto, Prague, Berlin, etc. all kinds of things are needed for their own person or household, such as furniture, pictures, children's toys, etc. much else produced in the most precious and artistic execution.

Scholars are assigned to research work by the SS, which then appears under other names as the work of German scholars.

The hot summer is characterized by the strongest transports. The statistical breakdown shows more than half of over-aged people over 65 years old. Accordingly, illnesses and deaths are increasing. 150-160 people die every day. All men and women able to work are particularly involved in production for the German army administration, as well as for export items and in agriculture. There is a lack of staff for internal service - for caring for the elderly and the sick, etc. The burying of the daily dead is not manageable either. 500 corpses are unburied on hot days. Men who are able to work have to dig the mass graves at night after their daytime work. So 3 times 15 coffins are layered one on top of the other in the pits filled with water - there is groundwater already 60 cm below the ground. While the deceased were previously stored in the barracks and houses and was then collected with the striped wagon in the evening, in the casemates a central morgue has been established where the bodies are put in coffins, simply hewn from rough boards. How the previous funerals in the barracks affected the inmates is difficult to describe. The barracks inmates and children watched the loading of the coffins and could escort the dead to the barracks gate. From then on, the gendarme accompanies them.

The collection of corpses and delivery to the central mortuary was primitive due to the lack of suitable vehicles. Small wagons drive through the city with several corpses on board, transported with insufficient blankets through the whole day. The morgue was located on the street from Bohušovice - Th. train station, which the incoming transports had to pass. The new arrivals encountered this mass transport of corpses almost every day. What was the state of mind of those expelled from their homeland and marching in columns into the ghetto when they saw these pictures? Sooner or later I too will be led away like this - had to be almost everyone's thoughts.

Several times a day a flat wagon with 30 or more coffins drove from the central mortuary to the cemetery outside the ghetto - a large open one - and again on the street past the newcomers with 2-3 men and a gendarme as escort.

The few flat cars are used to transport material and dead, but hearses from the Jewish Community do come to the ghetto. One of the first hearses that the ghetto received was used for transport of bread and food, carried the inscription child welfare and was dragged through the ghetto by the young people. There were only a few pairs of horses and these were intended for agriculture, while all other transport had to be done by human hands.

Between August and September 1942 the ghetto reached a population of 38,000. The transport movement to and from the ghetto movement to the east amounted to 27,000 people in that month.

On some days 1,000 - 3,000 people arrived and almost as many left.

The work associated with the accommodation, meals, sanitary facilities, etc. was enormous. More than 10,000 people had to be accommodated in the attic of the barracks houses. Little or no lighting, toilets were torture for those housed there.

Transport of the elderly. Whereas so far the transport has been compiled mostly from those able to work to the east, suddenly came the announcement that towards the end of June 1942 men and women over 65 years old were to register within a few days. Day and night, columns accompanied by the ghetto guard were brought into the Magdeburg barracks. It was a terrible sight to see the sick, malnourished people on the streets and corridors of the barracks, especially on the night when the registration took place. The 90 and 100 year old people didn't know what was happening to them or what would happen to them. The assistants employed by the transport department had to record the national and family situation - especially where the children, possibly including the spouse, are located. The instructions of the SS authorities had ordered various exceptions to the eastern transport. Aryan tinged, war-disabled soldiers from the world war with high war awards and similar should be withdrawn from transport. As soon as the first 2000 were registered in a few hours, they received an order to leave for the East. From 6 o'clock in the morning, groups of 50 - 100 old, barely crawling old men dragged themselves to the Bohušovice train station until late in the evening. The march lasted a whole day. Wagon loading of 1500-2000 victims consecrated to death. Those who couldn’t walk and who were sick were the last to be deported to the train station on stretchers and standing in a truck. Over 23,000 old people were registered in 3 days and 12,000 of them were transported away. Ostrowo, where an appropriate camp was supposedly prepared for the elderly, was designated as the destination in the mouth radio. Like all previous promises of the SS, this news was of course a lie and a trap, because they were heading towards destruction, as we will describe later.

In the barracks, which are otherwise intended for 3000 soldiers, there are 24,000; in the almost 100 year old civil houses where 3000 - 3500 civilians lived, 26,000 people of all social classes and nations are pressed together. In addition, the many workshops, offices, warehouses and the SS authorities take up a considerable amount of space. There is a lack of air, light, food, clothes, linen. The desired equipment for the Jews.

The year 1941 was probably the hardest of the 3 - ½ years in the existence of the ghetto Th. The following years always brought new methods and inventions of the SS to contribute to the completion of the program of Hitler, which the Central Office for the Jewish Emigration in Berlin this title was later changed to the Central Office for the Control of the Jewish Question, led by the allegedly Tel Aviv - born and fluent in Hebrew SS group leader Eichmann with his helpers Günther, Möhse and others in Prague and Vienna, etc. took care of the murders.

In 1941/42, 244 transports brought around 110,000 evacuated persons and 44,000 people left the ghetto in 31 transports to the east. 16,000 dead and 50,000 still vegetating is the result of the first year in the ghetto. A tremendous task and achievement that could only be achieved through self-discipline, sacrifice and renunciation. Mass housing, construction of water, electricity, etc. sewage services, kitchens, agricultural establishments, hospitals, crematorium, new roads, care for children - invalids and the elderly - all this created by children - women and men’s hands.

The youth had to adapt, had to abandon the previous habits of the age and so on, subordinate to the community. Individual fates are inevitable victims of the broken fortress in which people from all regions, all social classes meet under very special circumstances in the war - which meant one of the greatest political and social upheavals.

The incoming transports are guided through the lock. The transport is brought directly from the train to a barracks or house designated for this purpose, where it is subjected to a thorough body search for money, tobacco goods, gold, silver. Anyone found with any forbidden object that he has not voluntarily given away comes into the bunker, where he may spend weeks. The suitcases, bedrolls etc. are torn open in a separate room and thoroughly robbed for days. The accepted items are stored in the warehouse. Thrown in piles, the food left to spoil. Millions of valuable irreplaceable objects are destroyed in this way. Clothes, underclothes, shoes are taken from the suitcases and the like. Stored in the SS warehouse. For those who were passed through, a very small part of the belongings they brought with them remained incomplete and exchanged. In a few months, the clothes and linen are worn out, the shoes torn, soap, cleaning agents and many other things are missing, the lice and vermin are spreading more and more, especially among the old people. The disinfestation facility, which has since been expanded, is in operation day and night, but the effect of the mass billeting is short-lived. The malnutrition manifests in all possible diseases. The long queues in front of the kitchens stand for hours to see if there is anything left of the rotten potatoes, and the trembling and skinny hands of the starving people rummage through the thrown-away kitchen rubbish.

Berušky. One day, 5 German women appear in the ghetto. On behalf of the SS, accompanied by a gendarme and 2 ghetto guards. Irregular in time and choice of houses or rooms, they pay a visit. The residents of the rooms to be searched have to leave them, then some suitcases - which are removed from the rooms - full of confiscated things are carried to the headquarters. In the rooms, however, everything is messed up, food, clothes, linen, etc. The food left over, which the SS control organs did not eat on the spot, is scattered or destroyed, the clothes cut - they looked for money. In the next few hours, those with whom even the smallest amount of money was found are ordered to the headquarters, imprisoned and sentenced to arrest, and in many cases taken to the fortress. Without a certificate, without a receipt, the internees were robbed of their last supplies and possessions. This robbery and devastation remain as a constant introduction. Nothing changes when one of these German women of the Nazi party is found to have in her apartment in addition to 80 clocks, an abundance of items such as stockings, laundry, soap, etc. Others come who after a short time continue their work in the same way for 50 or more marks a day wages. Nothing is spared, including what the mother keeps for the children. It is not for nothing that these women were called berušky for their national duty.

In addition to these controls, the SS often appears under the assistance of gendarmes who occupy the barracks or the house - often for visits. Severe punishment, torture are the consequences if tobacco products, money or other prohibited items are found. In the commandant's office, many people are tortured to death in the most terrible way if they do not reveal the place or person where the things came from.

Significantly how foreign the ghetto Th.

is represented by many episodes like the first transport’s arrival from Holland. The Dutch Jews are first led into the lock at the Hamburg barracks. White-covered tables are set up in the courtyard at which those who have arrived are entertained: Goulash, coffee, cake -. A photo session follows. Then everyone receives a postcard on which he announces the happy arrival and has to communicate hospitality to relatives or friends. After the cards have been removed, they have to go to the body and baggage control. At this point all luggage that the entertained had brought with them was removed, leaving only what was on the body. Not even the prostheses of the war invalids, which those around Germany earned and many decorated former soldiers brought with them, were spared the robbery. These were the sponsored Jews from the Dutch camp, who were transported to the model ghetto and not to the east. Before leaving the Dutch camp, those chosen for Terezín are asked to take everything with them, so that the robbery of the SD was particularly fruitful.

To reinforce the SD, there are 5 19-20 year old SS men who are primarily employed as tractor drivers. The ghetto had received a few tractors with trailers for the entire transport service of material, etc. The driving skills of this SS youth home, as they were called, cost many lives. The heroic SS drivers ran people over for pleasure, not just as a matter of course but on purpose. So the ones who arrived are transported, with the sick patients and those unable to walk crammed standing into two sidecars; on the road from Bohušovice to Terezín 27 old people were thrown out. 10 dead remained where they lay, the rest came to the hospital, seriously injured, in which others died of their injuries, the survivors remain cripples. The boys tried their pistols against living targets on various occasions, especially when they were drunk. The message to the camp commandant read: shot for insubordination. The way the Jews had to greet members of the SD and the government gendarmerie was particularly effective. According to the camp regulations, the men had to greet the aforementioned by exposing their heads and the women by bowing. Old people, who for reasons of short-sightedness or other reasons did not greet the SS properly, often had their headgear knocked off. Blows to the head or kicks were the encore. The aged people hardly knew why they were being treated this way.

3 Note 3: Page no. 40 missing in the scanned documents