The Overorganized Ghetto
This chapter examines the administration of the ghetto, the most complex and largest Jewish self-administration per capita in German-occupied Europe. It also offers background on the German and Austrian SS, who controlled but did not administer the ghetto. The Theresienstadt bureaucracy developed its own politics, wherein the ethnicity of functionaries carried as much weight as belonging to one of the often competing departments of the self-administration. The chapter explores the agency of the Jewish functionaries vis-à-vis the SS, and how they interacted with and were perceived by ordinary prisoners. In doing so it contributes to the debate on Jewish Councils. It also discusses the role of Leo Baeck and shows that he was a skillful, occasionally cunning functionary. Finally, the chapter discusses the Jewish informers, their motivation, and their contributions to the German running of the ghetto.