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Theresienstadt, 1941-45, by H. G. Adler; Race and Reich, by Joseph Tanenbaum
- Abstract
When the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia they called that country a “protectorate.” The Czechoslovak Jews, as well as Jews from other “protected” countries, not being German subjects, were sent to the “paradise ghetto” of Theresienstadt rather than to regular concentration camps; the announced purpose of this was their “moral rehabilitation,” to be achieved under “responsible self-government” and by “honest” work. It was not quite clear what would happen to them afterwards, except that they were to be transported somewhere eastward. In addition to the Czech Jews who were forcibly deported to this ghetto, some Jews from Western European countries came voluntarily, inveigled by false letters and promises.
Theresienstadt (Terezin in Czech) was an old army post and fortress consisting of a quarter of a square mile of brick barracks, enclosed by battlements, in the northwest of Czechoslovakia, very close to the present German border. Its greatest population on any one day was 58,491 prisoners, although some 141,000 individuals were sent there altogether. Thirty-three thousand five hundred people tried in Theresienstadt, and some 85,000 were transported and tried elsewhere. Vermin, and the SS, infested the place just as they did the regular concentration camps.
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