Cultural Life

Theresienstadt is famous as the “cultural ghetto.” Rather than following the traditional interpretation of cultural activities as resistance, this chapter explores how in Theresienstadt, as in other camps, artistic production and consumption were prestigious activities linked to symbolic capital. The social elite in the ghetto redefined “high culture” and marked as particularly valuable those works that were considered the most Czech. Inmates’ positions in the social hierarchy dictated who had access to which productions, and “wealthy” prisoners such as cooks acted as patrons for artists or could play soccer, a much-loved sport in Theresienstadt. The enthusiasm for the key cultural and sporting events demonstrates that the ideological divisions among Czech prisoners, Zionists, and Czecho-Jews were of secondary importance to Czech belonging.

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.

Introduction

The introduction outlines the objectives of the book and contextualizes it in terms of existing Holocaust studies scholarship in general and Theresienstadt in particular. It offers a brief chronology of the ghetto and explains why it was a ghetto and not a concentration camp. It also relates the work to issues pertinent to modern Jewish history, the history of everyday life, and research on ethnicity and Central Europe. Specifically, it shows how ethnicity became the central category of difference in the prisoner society, one directly linked to stratification. This introduction also lays out the central claim of the book that social interaction continues under extreme circumstances and brings Holocaust and Jewish history into the wider context of modern history. It also discusses forms of prisoners’ agency in the everyday of the ghetto.

Conclusion

Terezín was a place where the last generations of Central and Western European Jewry spent the final weeks, months, or years of their lives—lives cut short and ended by Nazi persecution. It was a society in extremis, a story that sheds light on broader issues of ethnicity, stratification, gender, and the political dimension of the actions of “little people.”...

The Age of Pearl Barley

This chapter presents a hidden history of how food and hunger shaped the politics of everyday life in Terezín. It offers a social and cultural history of food, eating, and hunger, and of how food defined social structures and kinship. The German authorities consigned Jews to Terezín and restricted the supply of food. Shortages led to maldistribution, caused by the food categories introduced by the Jewish self-administration and corruption, which vastly increased rates of hunger and death. Maldistribution was a consequence of inmate society. The social hierarchy in Theresienstadt resulted in stark differences in access to food, with younger prisoners enjoying relatively good access while the underfed elderly population was deprived and had an extremely high mortality rate. Mass starvation in Theresienstadt was caused more by maldistribution than by lack of food.

Medicine and Illness

Illness was a defining experience for Holocaust victims, yet their medical history is missing. This chapter studies the medical staff, patients, and diseases in the Theresienstadt ghetto. In examining medical care in extremis, it studies how the Central European Jewish doctors succeeded in providing comparably excellent healthcare and good medications for the inmates. However, the medical staff applied triage, separating “important” from “irrelevant,” that is elderly, patients. The chapter examines the mentality, experience, and gendered power mechanisms that characterized the medical staff; the agency of the doctors; and the hierarchies they assigned to patients. Finally, in exploring how the prisoner physicians made sense of Theresienstadt as a part of their medical careers, the chapter shows what kind of historical protagonists doctors are.

A Society Based on Inequality

This chapter looks at the formation and hierarchy of the prisoner society. It explores the differentiation of prisoner society by ethnicity, time of arrival, age, and social capital. It shows how people got used to life in Theresienstadt, what it meant to be “well off” and “poor,” and how inmates made sense of their lives. Prisoners employed an “ethnic gaze” that made sense of others through perceived ethnic and biological differences, with Jewishness not functioning as a connecting factor but rather as an ethnic demarcator. The Terezín prisoners employed a binary vision that differentiated between Czech and “foreign” prisoners. The periodic arrival of new inmates and the emergence of a master narrative of Theresienstadt meant that the veterans—young Czech Jews—became the social elite. The chapter also explores the role of gender, sexuality, and queer desire in the workings of the victim society.

Transports from Terezín to the East

This last chapter looks at the role of Theresienstadt as a transit ghetto and explains how the transports to the East were organized. Specifically, the Jewish self-administration was forced to compile lists of prisoners for transports. The Jewish functionaries categorized people as indispensable and inmates complained about the injustice of the selection, demonstrating another aspect of stratification among the prisoners. Inmates’ decision taking but also fear and panic at the departing transports redefines our understanding of the victims’ powerlessness. Finally, the chapter looks at the long-standing ignorance of Theresienstadt inmates about the mass murder underway in the East as part of a coping mechanism.