UC Santa Barbara > History Department > Prof. Marcuse > Courses > Hist 133D Homepage > 133D Book Essays Index page > Student essay
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"Contrasting Representations of Theresienstadt" Book Essay
on:
Jessica Resha,
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by Jessica Resha for Prof. Marcuse's lecture course |
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& Abstract |
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Plagiarize! |
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About Jessica Resha I am a senior history and business economics double major at UCSB. During the summer of 2008 I had the opportunity to teach English in Kosovo, and while I was there I developed a greater interest in learning about genocide, especially when my Kosovar friends and their families explained how it had affected them. Furthermore, while studying abroad in Europe, I was able to visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam as well as the Museum of Jewish History in Berlin. These experiences, as well as my past coursework in history, have given me a particular interest in the Holocaust. I chose to write about George Berkley’s book on Theresienstadt because I had heard that it had been used as a propaganda piece by the Nazis, and I was curious to see if there was a difference between how the camp was portrayed by the Nazis and what it was actually like. Abstract (back to top) |
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Essay (back to top)
Concentration camps and extermination camps were the means by which the Nazis sought to achieve their Final Solution – the extermination of the Jews of Europe. When the rest of the world caught wind of what was happening at these camps, the Nazis turned to Theresienstadt, their “model ghetto.” Though Theresienstadt was portrayed as a ghetto by the Nazis and a place where European Jews enjoyed pleasant conditions and good treatment, it bore many similarities to the other concentration camps of Europe. It was extremely overcrowded, people had to survive on starvation rations, there was disease and death, and residents were transported to other concentration camps and death camps. The Nazi descriptions of Theresienstadt to the Jews, as well as the Red Cross visit and the film made about the camp show that these portrayals existed to lure Jews into submission and to fool foreign nations into believing that the Jews of Europe were being treated humanely. In contrast, representations of Theresienstadt made by its Jewish residents expose Theresienstadt for what it really was, showing the horrid conditions that they lived through as well as the deception and lies of the Nazis.
To the Jews of Europe, German authorities asserted that Theresienstadt was a sort of spa where the aged and infirm would be given every possible care and consideration. The Nazis took many other steps to convince Jews headed for Theresienstadt that they were going to be entering a special resort-like ghetto in order to appease them into complying peacefully. For instance, according to George Berkley, author of Hitler’s Gift: The Story of Theresienstadt, the SS pledged itself to take care of these Jews for the rest of their lives if they just signed contracts turning over all of their remaining assets to the SS. Jews that would be transported to Theresienstadt were also asked to specify in advance whether they wanted their rooms by the lake, by the square, or overlooking some other aspect of the luxury town. SS officials urged them to take along their nicest clothes, so new residents arrived with parasols, summer dresses, top hats, frock coats, and other formal clothing in tow (Berkley, 8). These Jews complied because the location of Theresienstadt seemed to be evidence that the Nazis were being truthful about the nature of the ghetto. Berkley states, “Northern Czechoslovakia was known for its resort spas, such as Carlsbad and Marienbad, and as the SS described it to them, Theresienstadt seemed to fall into that category.” (Berkley, 8) Furthermore, the type of people sent to Theresienstadt reinforced the idea that this truly was some sort of spa town or “privileged” ghetto. Transports from Germany and Austria to this “model ghetto,” as the Nazis called it, were composed of so-called privileged persons, most of them more than 65 years old or war invalids. Others that had the “privilege” of being sent to Theresienstadt were Jewish partners in mixed marriages, half-Jews, employees of Jewish organizations who had worked under the Nazis, as well as prominent performers, artists, and academicians. Theresienstadt became “a center for the cream of continental Jewry,” so most simply assumed that residents of this particular camp, or ghetto, would enjoy favorable treatment. They knew, at least, that conditions would be much better that what Jews were suffering through in the East (Berkley, 12). Because of all the measures taken by the Nazis, many deportees to Theresienstadt felt privileged to be going there instead of some other death camp or concentration camp. Some were even eager to go. Thus, it is clear that to the Jews of Europe, the Nazis portrayed Theresienstadt as a spa town where they would be taken care of in order to lure them into submission.
As word of the gas chambers spread abroad and as the war continued to go against Germany, the Nazis began to look favorably upon requests from outside parties to visit Theresienstadt, as they hoped to show it off as an example of their humane policies toward Jews. Pressure for such a visit came from Denmark with the arrival of the Danes to Theresienstadt in the fall of 1943. Berkley states, “They had hardly reached the camp before King Christian and the Danish Red Cross began seeking to send a delegation to see how their Jewish countrymen were faring.” (Berkley, 165) Nazi leadership complied with the request as the German armed forces wanted to retain peace and quiet in Denmark. However, no definitive date was given for the visit, since before Theresienstadt could be shown to foreign visitors, much work needed to be done. Shortly before the end of 1943, the Nazis launched a “Stadtverschonerung” or city beautification, so that the camp would project an image of the concentration camps that the Nazis wanted the world to see (Berkley, 166). The sign that read “Transport” over the transport office was taken down and the transport numbers of the Theresienstadt inmates became their identification numbers instead, in an attempt to hide the fact that residents were being deported to other camps. More medical supplies became available and additional musical instruments, operatic costumes, wigs, and other theatrical gear arrived (Berkley, 168). Another deportation was ordered to alleviate the overcrowding problem. This transport included many sick adults and orphaned children since the SS realized that Theresienstadt contained “too many of the wrong people.” (Berkley, 169) Artists decorated signposts pointing to the café, to the baths, etc, and benches, grass, and 1200 beds of roses appeared. Shop windows were filled with desirable goods and some residents received allotment gardens. The SS authorized the construction of an extensive playground, and children were rehearsed in how to behave before the foreign visitors (Berkley, 171). Buildings were painted or whitewashed, fences were torn down or repaired, and Jewish women had to use their hairbrushes to clean the sidewalks that the delegation would walk down with soap and water (Berkley, 172). Clearly, the very character and appearance of the camp was changed in the beautification process, so by the time the Red Cross representatives arrived, an image of the camp was forced on them that was very different than what the Jewish residents lived through on a daily basis.
As planned, on June 23, 1944, two delegates from the International Red Cross and one from the Danish Red Cross visited Theresienstadt, accompanied by the camp’s commandant, SS First Lieutenant Karl Rahm. Just like the beautification process that occurred prior to the visit, on the day that the delegates came to the camp, measures were taken to ensure that the right image was projected. Cripples and poorly dressed people were told to keep out of sight, and nicer clothing was distributed to those who would be on view. It had been decided that Eppstein, the Jewish Elder of the camp, would do most of the talking to show that the Jews governed themselves freely, and according to Berkley, he gave the visitors “a carefully crafted and deceptively distorted description of his community.” (Berkley, 174) The commission was taken along a scheduled route in which they visited the bank, the newly erected band pavilion, the laundry, the living quarters of some Prominenten, the ground floor of the barracks, one or more hospital wards, the allotment gardens, the post office, the café, the pharmacy, and other sites (Lederer, 117). They saw a rehearsal of Verdi’s Requiem, watched the children’s cast of Brundibar sing the opera’s finale, and witnessed soccer fans erupting in cheers as a goal was kicked. In Ghetto Theresienstadt, Zdenek Lederer writes, “All along the route orderlies, well out of view, ran ahead of the commission and started off various embellishment devices as one starts off a jukebox by dropping a penny in its slot.” (Lederer, 118) For example, at just the right moment, healthy, tanned young women with rakes over their shoulders marched off to work in the fields singing and laughing. The visitors did not know that the people lying in the hospital beds were actually healthy individuals, the real sick having been moved out of sight for the day or that the men they saw playing chess had never played the game in their lives (Lederer, 118). Berkley calls the Red Cross visit “the most elaborate, drawn-out farce every staged since the time Catherine the Great took her foreign visitors on a trip down the Volga to see the mock villages put up by her prime minister Potemkin.” (Berkley, 176) Because the visitors expected to see what they knew of Polish ghetto conditions, with people starving in the streets and armed policemen on the perimeter, the International Red Cross inspectors were largely taken in by what they saw. The Danish inspectors, who mostly concerned themselves with their fellow Danes did manage to open up some holes in the Nazis’ curtain of deception, finding out that one Dane had only lived in his especially pleasant room for one day. Furthermore, an inquiry about the camp’s mortality figures produced only a vague reply. On their return to Copenhagen, the Danish visitors reported on what they had seen, and they were obviously impressed, describing favorable conditions and denying rumors that a number of Jews would be sent to forced labor from Theresienstadt (Berkley, 177). Maurice Rossel, the International Red Cross representative issued a fifteen page report that proved to be “a glowing testimonial to the model ghetto, its Jewish administrator and, most significantly, its Nazi overseers.” (Berkley, 177) In an interview more than thirty years after the Red Cross affirmed that conditions at Theresienstadt passed for humane, Rossel argued that he could not have been expected to see beyond what the Nazis intended him to see. Brad Prager examines this interview in “Interpreting the Visible Traces of Theresienstadt,” saying, “He was supposed to be the eyes of the world, but was limited in what conclusions he could draw.” (Prager, 187) Rossel has been blamed for failing to write a proper report that would help the prisoners of Theresienstadt, but according to Prager, “Even though the prisoners were living in miser and, in some measure, in conditions comparable to those at Auschwitz, Rossel claims that this was not made available to him. He was not given any visual evidence that contradicted the story told to him by the SS.” (Prager, 189) Thus, Nazi authorities at Theresienstadt were able to disguise the conditions that residents at the camp were living through and show a positive image of what the camp was like to the outside world.
After the Red Cross representatives visited Theresienstadt, the Nazi administration decided to take advantage of the beautification process that they had put the camp through and produce a film about the camp that would persuade the outside world that the Nazis were treating the Jews of Europe well. Though we now know it as, The Fuhrer Gives a City to the Jews, the film was originally called Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem judischen Siedlungsgebiet (A Documentary Film from the Jewish Settlement Area). In an article about the film made about Theresienstadt, Karel Margry states, “By labeling it a Dokumentarfilm, the Nazis intended to give the film an aura of objectivity, of truthfulness. The word Dokumentarfilm was meant to indicate that this was not a fiction film, no staged propaganda, but a reliable authentic account, showing Theresienstadt ‘as it really is.’” (Margry, 150) However, the film presents an even more falsified picture of Theresienstadt that that which the Red Cross visitors saw. At the beginning of the film there are shots of a group of distinguished-looking elderly Jews sitting under sunshades on a terrace sipping drinks through straws, a well dressed couple with their children opening a food package in a comfortable living room, a group of young Jews swimming joyfully in the river, and a man wearing a tuxedo while leading an orchestra. The film shows an evening at the café with music and dancing, girls sunbathing, and onlookers cheering at a soccer game (Margry, 156). Putting all of these leisure activities at the beginning sets the tone for the whole film. Showing non-productive activities of entertainment and amusement allows the film to present Theresienstadt as a holiday resort. Deceitful measures were taken in filming, as in preparation for the Red Cross visit, to project the right version of the camp to the outside world. The comfortable living room described above actually belonged to Murmelstein, families on-screen were actually not even related, and residents who didn’t look Jewish enough were placed at the back of scenes and replaced by residents who looked more Semitic (Berkley, 184). The film ends with a scene showing a family – husband and wife, two children, and an old grandmother – sitting around an abundant supper table, all seemingly very well taken care of (Lederer, 121).
The purpose of the film that is now known as The Fuhrer Gives a City to the Jews was to give a false image of life at the camp and to deceive the outside world as to what was truly happening to the Jews of Europe. Though the film itself may have helped the Nazis to achieve this goal if given the chance, as a result of the Nazis poor planning, the world never really had the opportunity to be deceived. There are four known, documented screenings of the completed film. The first was a private showing in Prague for a select group of high-ranking SS officers, and the other three screenings, oddly enough, occurred in Theresienstadt itself. These were for representatives of foreign organizations negotiating with the Nazis to rescue concentration camp inmates (Margry, 154). The SS intended the film for distribution abroad to organizations such as the International Red Cross and the Vatican, or neutral countries such as Sweden or Switzerland. Regarding this fact, Margry asserts, “The SS also hoped to get the film distributed abroad, but never had a clear idea of exactly how that would be accomplished. By the time the film was finished, 28 March, 1945, the Nazis no longer had the means to distribute the film to countries abroad.” (Margry, 155) As a result, the SS showed screenings at Theresienstadt as a last-minute solution. According to Margry, “As the SS saw it, the combination of seeing the film plus the real thing (provided it was sufficiently beautified) would reinforce the credibility of both.” (Margry, 154) However, the Nazis were wrong, and at this late stage, the true fate of the Jews of Europe was no longer a secret. The film had no effect on the beliefs of those who saw it, nor on the public opinion in the countries that the represented. They recognized it for the blatant propaganda that it was and discarded it. (Margry, 155)
The Jewish residents of Theresienstadt portrayed the camp much differently than did the Nazis. Diaries, poetry, and artwork of the camp’s residents show that Theresienstadt was far from the spa town that the Nazis described. Artists took great risks in pilfering paper, pencils, pens, and ink from the extensive administrative apparatus that the Nazis established and depicting the brutality of ghetto life including disease, overcrowding, hunger, and death (Lamberti, 105). Creative expression through art and other types of cultural outlets was a form of resistance and a strategy for survival at the camp (Lamberti, 109). Art was one of the few means available to convey the emotions of this horrific time to the outside world and to future generations. Bedrich Fritta’s Incoming Transport documents a long line of people arriving at the camp. They are driven like cattle and hunched over and tired-looking, showing how even the experience of coming to the camp de-moralized and de-humanized the residents. The overcrowding that was such a large part of camp life is displayed by the same artist’s In the Attic. This piece shows the poor conditions that residents lived through in cramped quarters. It displays destruction of privacy, an absence of minimal comfort, the despair of the aged, the eroding communal life, and a shortage of air, sanitation, and space. (Green, 68) Fritta’s People at Work documents overcrowding in the streets of Theresienstadt. People seem to be everywhere in this image, stuffed in buildings and coming out of windows. Though the title of this piece would imply that it would show people doing work activities at Theresienstadt, viewers can’t make out what they’re doing. They seem to be mundane and insignificant tasks, and there is clearly no life in the faces of the workers (Green, 41). Courtyard in the Ghetto by Leo Haas displays poorly constructed, run-down buildings that are a far cry from the buildings documented in The Fuhrer Gives a City to the Jews (Green, 6). Karel Fleischman’s Mortuary shows that death was always on the minds of residents and that death was widespread despite the fact that Theresienstadt was not a typical killing camp (Green, 132). In a similar way, the hearse dominated many artists’ imaginations. It is the subject of sketches by Karel Fleischmann and Bedrich Fritta, each titled The Hearse, as well as two sketches by Malvina Schalkova. In Bread Being Delivered, Schalkova shows workers of Theresienstadt using a hearse to haul bread around the camp, and in the second the hearse bears children. Both demonstrate how daily activities in Theresienstadt were shadowed with the specter of death. In Ghetto Swingers by Leo Haas, a jazz band gives a concert while a hearse moves grimly across the foreground. This picture shows that despite the presence of cultural activity in Theresienstadt, there was death just like in any other camp, and its presence loomed in the background of every event that existed to distract from this fact (Green, 56). Finally, in Haas’ Transport the East, he exposes the truth that the Nazis were most attempting to cover up with the Red Cross visit and the film about Theresienstadt – the Jews of Europe were being deported to killing camps and other concentration camps across Europe (Green, 110). These artists’ portrayals of Theresienstadt illustrate that the camp was not the “model ghetto” that the Nazis were proclaiming it as to the outside world.
Similarly, residents of Theresienstadt exposed the horrid conditions that they endured at the camp as well as the lies and deceit of the Nazis in the literature that they wrote. Berkley states, “Literary activity flourished in Theresienstadt. People of all ages and backgrounds scribbled away feverishly, using whatever writing materials – usually pencil stubs and wrapping paper – they could find.” (Berkley, 134) Poetry became a very popular form of expression, most reflecting deep longings for the past, dismay at the dismal present, and bright hopes for the future. Ilse Weber, a former Czech writer of children’s books even wrote over one hundred poems during her two year stay at Theresienstadt. In one of her many poems, “This is the Way to Theresienstadt,” Weber writes, “They marched along, with their heads to the ground, the Star of David pinned on to their breasts, their tired feet wore and covered with dust, their tortured souls torn with pain and unrest. Harassed by orders, their wound-stricken hands carried their heavy burdens.” (Terezin, 21) She has clearly been demoralized by her time at the camp, and through her poetry, she expresses her feelings toward what the SS were putting her and her people through. This poem further states, “This, too, is the road on which hurriedly rolled the unceasing trucks that carried away the aching loads of those destined to die.” (Terezin, 21) Weber emphasizes both death in Theresienstadt itself as well as the death that was sure to occur in the killing centers that the residents of Theresienstadt were being shipped to. Therefore, through poetry, as well as through art, the Jewish residents of Theresienstadt were able to express their thoughts on camp life and the actual conditions that they were forced to live through.
Children at Theresienstadt were given extraordinary treatment in order to maintain their innocence and to protect the future of Judaism, but despite the efforts of many adults in the camp, children could not be protected from the tragedies of life there. This is reflected in the art and literature produced by Theresienstadt’s children. Berkley boldly claims, “Probably no community in history ever demonstrated such devotion to its young as did the Theresienstadt ghetto.” (Berkley, 108) This is illustrated through the fact that although ten percent of the children in the camp were orphans, adults were more than willing to take them in. Moreover, although teaching was banned, people of the camp worked around this issue fairly easily. Teachers disguised instructional activity through games, plays, and songs, sparing no measure to help these children that represented the affirmation of life itself in the camp (Berkley, 112). Regardless of efforts to ensure the welfare of the children, they still felt hunger pains, slept two to a bed in triple-tiered bunks, and experienced death and disease. Of the conditions that children faced in Theresienstadt, fifteen year old Petr Fischl writes, “We got used to undeserved slaps, blows, and executions. We got accustomed to seeing people die in their own excrement, to seeing piled-up coffins full of corpses, to seeing the sick amid dirt and filth and to seeing the helpless doctors. We got used to it that from time to time, one thousand unhappy souls would come here and that, from time to time, another thousand unhappy souls would go away…” (Volavkova, 6) “Fear,” a poem written in the camp by twelve year old Eva Pickova, aptly describes the terror that she and other children felt regarding death in the ghetto. She writes, “Death wields an icy scythe. An evil sickness spreads a terror in its wake, The victims of its shadow weep and writhe.” (Green, 172) Above all else children feared deportation, and this is reflected in their writings. (Berkley, 116) A diary entry of Helga Weissova, which discusses the transport of the elderly reads, “Why do they want to send these defenseless people away? If they want to get rid of us young people, I can understand that, maybe they are afraid of us, don’t want us to give birth to any more Jewish children. But how can these old people be dangerous? If they had to come here to Terezin, isn’t that enough, can’t they let them die in peace here? After all, these old people can’t hope for anything else…” (Volavkova, 24) Children even commented on Theresienstadt’s use as a propaganda tool. In her diary, Helga Weissova writes, “It’s ridiculous, but it seems that Terezin is to be changed into a sort of spa…The school building that had served as hospital up to today was cleared out overnight and the patients put elsewhere while the whole building was repainted, scrubbed up, school benches brought in, and in the morning a sign could be seen afar: ‘Boys’ and Girls’ School.’ It really looks fine, like a real school, only the pupils and teachers are missing.” (Volavkova, 62) The fact that even children, who were shielded and protected as much as they could be, recognized the poor conditions in Theresienstadt shows that the experience of the Jews at the camp was very different than the propaganda schemes of the Nazis suggested.
Often the Nazi authorities at Theresienstadt commissioned Jewish artists at the camp to create artwork, and at times this resulted in images that showed parts of the camp in a positive light. These usually contrast starkly with private representations of the same parts of Theresienstadt created by Jewish residents, exposing Nazi commissioned art as fraudulent. For example, Bilder aus Theresienstadt was a book commissioned by the SS, and in it there is a lithograph of Theresienstadt’s coffeehouse by Joseph Spier. In his Kaffeehaus, Jewish customers sit in the café drinking coffee served by waiters in white jackets as they would in any typical coffeehouse in any European city. They are listening to a pianist playing on a grand piano, and mural paintings cover the walls (Seeing through “paradise,” 37). The picture is lively and colorful, and altogether creates a convivial scene. The customers are wearing nice, colorful clothing, and they look like they are enjoying themselves, so it is easy to see how this image could make people believe that Jews were being treated well at Theresienstadt and possible at other concentration camps in Europe. This image is very different from Fritz Taussig’s privately created Kaffeehaus. In this sketch, residents of Theresienstadt sit at tables with no coffee and no servers to wait on them. Their drawn and haggard faces set the tone for the image. They are visably sad and resigned, and they are in no way engaging in the social conviviality of the first drawing. Through the window, a guard and a fence topped with barbed wire can be seen (Seeing through “paradise,” 37). Both are a constant reminder that the residents of Theresienstadt are being imprisoned against their will. The comparison of these two images representing the same feature of Theresienstadt reveals the fraudulency in Nazi commissioned art about Theresienstadt.
Theresienstadt’s artists were conscious of the documentary nature of their work, so many of their drawings exposed the deceit and fraudulence of the Nazis’ beautification and representation of Theresienstadt. For instance, according to Marjorie Lamberti, author of “Making Art in the Terezin Concentration Camp,” in Bedrich Fritta’s Three Shops in Terezin “the embellished town that the Red Cross inspectors were invited to visit is shown to be no more than propped-up stage scenery, which conceals the corpses of prisoners waiting for a hearse.” (Lamberti, 109) Fritta hopes to show to outside viewers that conditions in the camp were not as they seemed in Nazi representations. The Nazis were covering up the death and destruction that the camp was causing with propaganda that was meant only to deceive the outside world. Fritta depicts somber landscape with barbed-wire fencing, a leafless tree, and ravens flying in a sunless sky. The two eyes peering out from the roofs of the stores underscore the artist’s intention to bear witness to what was truly happening at Theresienstadt. The same artist’s Film and Reality is a satirical critique of the use of art as propaganda. In the picture, a former actress wearing the star of David assists in the film production of The Fuhrer Gives a City to the Jews by applying make-up to the melancholy face of a prisoner who sits listlessly before the camera. She attempts to cover up his sad, haggard face with cosmetics, showing how the Nazi production covered up the true state of the Jewish residents of the camp.
Therefore, examination of Nazi commissioned representations of Theresienstadt as well as those made by residents of the camp present very different pictures of Theresienstadt. The Nazis attempted to lure the Jews of Europe into submission through portraying Theresienstadt as a spa town and to deceive foreign organizations and countries into believing that European Jews were being treated well through the Red Cross visit and the beautification process that the camp underwent as well as the film that they created about Theresienstadt. Representations of Theresienstadt made by its Jewish residents, however, successfully expose Theresienstadt for what it really was, showing the horrid conditions that they lived through as well as the lies and deceit of the Nazis.
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Annotated Bibliography and Links (back to top)(links last checked 3/23/10) Book Reviews
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Any student tempted to use this paper for an assignment in another course or school should be aware of the serious consequences for plagiarism. Here is what I write in my syllabi:
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