World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe fortress town of Terezín (German: Theresienstadt) in the region of Cechy (English: Bohemia; German: Böhmen) was occupied by the Germans, along with the rest of Czechoslovakia, in Mar 1939. One of the fortresses, the small one on the east side of the Ohre River, was taken over by the German Gestapo organization in Jun 1940 to be used as a prison; the first prisoners arrived within days. The prison in the small fortress was administratively separate from the concentration camp. The concentration camp was created in Nov 1941 out of the walled town on the west side of the Ohre River, under the control of the SS organization, with SS-Hauptsturmführer Siegfried Seidl as its first commandant. Its mission was to house Jews in transit for concentration camps in the east. 342 Jewish forced laborers were brought in to convert the town into a concentration camp. The Czech population of the city, about 7,000, was expelled in the spring of 1942. Jews from the occupied Czech lands, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany were then brought in; Czech Jews would remain the majority of the population for the remainder of the camp's existence. While the camp was presided over by the SS, internal policing was supported by Czech policemen (who reported to the Germans) and a small police force made up of Jewish prisoners (who reported to the nominal Jewish council). The population of the camp was mainly employed in the mining industry.

ww2dbaseIn Jun 1944, the Danish Red Cross (with a representative from the International Red Cross) was permitted to inspect the Theresienstadt camp. Prior to the visit, a large number of Jews were deported to minimize the appearance of crowding; those who remain were forced to provide a positive feedback to the Red Cross representatives. After the success in preventing the Red Cross representatives from detecting anything foul, the Germans decided to make Theresienstadt the model camp for propaganda purposes. A motion picture film, directed by Jewish prisoner Kurt Gerron, was made to present a false image of the camp to the outside world. Gerron was murdered by the Germans in Oct 1944, a month after the completion of the filming. The production was never completed. An attempt was made to destroy all copies of the film at the end fo the war, but a few survived nevertheless.

ww2dbaseBy the end of the war, the small fortress had processed more than 32,000 prisoners, 5,000 of whom were female. The main fortress, ie. the ghetto or the concentration camp, saw the arrival of 144,000 Jews (about 80,000 Czech Jews, 40,000 German Jews, 15,000 Austrian Jews, 5,000 Dutch Jews, 1,600 Polish Jews, 500 Slovak and Hungarian Jews, and 300 Luxembourger Jews). The camp also held a small number of Allied prisoners of war (21 British, 21 New Zealanders, and 17 Australians) who had unsuccessfully attempted to escape their places of imprisonment previously. 33,000 of the Jews would die in Theresienstadt (mainly from starvation and disease), while 88,000 of them would die in death camps in Eastern Europe.

ww2dbaseIn Feb 1945, a transport of approximately 1,200 Jews, most of whom Dutch, was sent from Theresienstadt to neutral Switzerland; a payment of $1,250,000 was made to Germany for their release. In Apr 1945, King Christian X secured the release of 423 Danish Jews from Theresienstadt.

ww2dbaseIn Apr 1945, the International Red Cross returned to Theresienstadt to assess the camp. On 2 May 1945, it took over the administration of the camp. Commandant Karl Rahm fled from the camp on 5 May 1945 (he would later be captured by American troops in Austria). Soviet troops arrived to liberate the camp on 8 May 1945.

ww2dbaseIn 1964, West Germany paid the British government £1,000,000 for having held British prisoners of war illegally in Theresienstadt; similar arrangements were made with Australia (A$10,000 per prisoner) and New Zealand in the late 1980s.

Theresienstadt Concentration Camp Interactive Map

Theresienstadt Concentration Camp Timeline

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