The Theresienstadt family camp (, ), also known as the Czech family camp, consisted of a group of Jewish inmates from the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia, who were held in the BIIb section of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp from 8 September 1943 to 12 July 1944. The Germans created the camp to mislead the outside world about the Final Solution.
Deported from the ghetto in seven transports in September and December 1943, and May 1944, the prisoners were not subjected to selection on arrival, an unusual situation in Auschwitz, and were granted a number of "privileges", including the creation of a children's block that provided the only attempt at organized education at Auschwitz. The living conditions nevertheless remained poor and the mortality rate was high. Most of the inhabitants who did not die of starvation or disease were murdered during the camp liquidations on 8–9 March and 10–12 July 1944. The first liquidation was the largest massacre of Czechoslovak citizens in history. Of the 17,517 Jews deported to the family camp, only 1,294 survived the war.
Background
Established in late 1941, the Theresienstadt Ghetto functioned in part as a transit center for Jews from Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria on their way to extermination camps and other mass killing centers. The first transport of Jews from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz occurred on 26 October 1942, after 42,005 prisoners had been deported elsewhere. Of the 7,001 people who were deported to Auschwitz from Theresienstadt in January and February 1943, 5,600 were immediately gassed and only 96 survived the war, despite the fact that the transports targeted able-bodied individuals who were intended as a labor detachment. For the next seven months, transports from Theresienstadt were halted on SS leader Heinrich Himmler's orders. Previously and apparently for different reasons, the SS had established a "Gypsy camp" at the BIIe section inside Auschwitz II-Birkenau where Romani and Sinti families were kept together and non-productive individuals were temporarily allowed to remain alive.
There is no surviving document indicating the SS reasoning for establishing the family camp, and it is a subject debated by scholars. It is probable that the family camp prisoners were kept alive so that their letters could reassure relatives in Theresienstadt and elsewhere that "deportation to the East" did not mean death. At the time, the SS was planning a Red Cross visit to Theresienstadt, and may have wanted to convince the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that deported Jews were not murdered. The family camp also served as a destination for those deported from Theresienstadt to ease overcrowding, which the ICRC inspectors would have noticed. Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer suggests that possibly the prisoners of the family camp were being used as hostages pending a successful outcome of Nazi–Jewish negotiations, similar to a transport of 1,200 children from the Białystok Ghetto, who were held at Theresienstadt for six weeks before being murdered on 7 October 1943 at Auschwitz, but the only evidence of this is circumstantial.
Some researchers have suggested that the SS planned an ICRC visit to the family camp at Birkenau to deceive the outside world about the true purpose of Auschwitz. When Himmler granted permission for ICRC representatives to visit Theresienstadt, he also granted permission for a visit to a "Jewish labor camp", believed by Czech historian Miroslav Kárný and Israeli historians Otto Dov Kulka and Nili Keren to refer to the family camp at Birkenau. Kárný, who witnessed the "beautification" of Theresienstadt prior to the Red Cross visit, wrote that the Nazis could have concealed the nature of Birkenau from Red Cross visitors. However, others believe that the poor physical condition of the inmates would make it clear that they were being mistreated.
Establishment
During August 1943, rumors circulated in Theresienstadt of a resumption in deportations. On 3 September in the "Daily Orders" of the Jewish self-administration, it was announced that 5,000 people would be deported three days later—the largest number so far on a single day. Unlike previous transports, the selection was not done by the Transport Department of the Jewish self-administration, but by SS commandant Anton Burger directly. Prisoners who had previously held exemptions from deportation, such as the Aufbaukommando, the work detail that arrived at Theresienstadt first, as well as 150 members of the disbanded Ghetto Guard were included on the transport. The bulk of the transport consisted of young Czech Jews whom Himmler feared might organize an uprising inside the ghetto, as had already occurred in the Warsaw Ghetto, and their families. The transport was almost entirely Czech; out of 5,000 deportees there were 124 German, 83 Austrian and 11 Dutch Jews. Previous transports had departed to an undisclosed location in the "East", but in this case the Jews were told that they were to be sent to Birkenau to establish a work camp supposedly called the "Arbeitslager Birkenau bei Neu-Berun". Leading figures in the self-administration, including Leo Janowitz, secretary of the Council of Elders, and Fredy Hirsch, deputy leader of the Youth Welfare Office, were included in the transport to help govern the new camp.
On 6 September, two transports carrying 5,007 Jews departed at 14:00 and 20:00 from Bauschowitz train station; they arrived at Auschwitz II-Birkenau two days later. There was no selection; no one was sent to the gas chambers. All were tattooed and registered into the camp by the Political Department, but in contrary to standard procedure, they kept their clothes and were not shaved. The inhabitants of the family camp were required to write to their relatives at Theresienstadt and to those not yet deported in order to mislead the outside world about the Final Solution; strict censorship prevented them from passing on accurate information. They had to give up their luggage and clothing, but were given civilian clothes that had been stolen from previous arrivals. The prisoners' records were marked "SB6", which meant that they were to be murdered 6 months after their arrival.
In December, two additional transports carrying 5,007 people arrived from Theresienstadt; the new arrivals were treated in the same way and held in the family camp. These transports also carried targeted the same demographic as the previous transport; 88.5% of its victims were Czech Jews. Several leaders in the Theresienstadt self-administration were in the December transport, having been deported as punishment for allegedly aiding escapees or committing other misconduct. The accusations were leveled by Anton Burger, the commandant of Theresienstadt, who disliked Jakob Edelstein, the Jewish elder. Deported to Auschwitz on 15 December, Edelstein was held at Block 11 in Auschwitz I.
Conditions
The SS leader in charge of the section was SS-Unterscharführer Fritz Buntrock, who was known for his cruelty and sentenced to death after the war. The Lagerältester (head kapo) in the camp was a German convicted murderer named Arno Böhm. When Böhm joined the SS in March 1944, he was replaced by another German criminal named Wilhelm Brachmann. Brachmann was also a criminal prisoner, but his offense was petty theft and he attempted to help the Jewish prisoners where he could. Initially, the block leaders in the camp were Polish prisoners who were brutalized from having spent years in Auschwitz. Later, when the September arrivals had learned to be cruel to each other, the most brutal were appointed block leaders.
Miroslav Kárný noted that the camp's conditions were described favorably by Auschwitz prisoners in other parts of the camp, but very harshly by prisoners of the family camp itself. He believes that the latter perception is more accurate because the overall mortality rate from "natural" camp deaths was the same at the family camp as the rest of Birkenau. The mortality was to the same causes: hunger, disease, poor sanitation, hypothermia, and exhaustion. Of the September arrivals, 1140 (about 25%) died in the first six months. BIIb was only , "a narrow, muddy strip surrounded by an electric fence", in the words of the Terezín Initiative. Unlike other Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz, they were allowed to receive packages, which they received from the ICRC in Switzerland, as well as friends and relatives in the Czech lands. However, few packages reached their intended recipients, having been stolen by the SS. A few children were born at the camp. Sanitary conditions were particularly poor, since there were only three latrines, each with three concrete slabs with 132 holes. The latrines were also used as clandestine meeting places for families, as it was the only place to get away from the SS.
Although BIIb was only a few hundred meters from the gas chambers and crematoria, these were not actually visible from the section. Of the 32 barracks, 28 were used for housing; barracks 30 and 32 were infirmaries; 31 was the children's barracks; and one barrack was used for a weaving factory in which women were forced to sew machine-gun belts. Women were housed in odd numbered barracks and men in even numbered barracks, which were located opposite the path that led down the center of the section. When the September transports arrived, the barracks were not complete, and most inmates worked inside the camp on construction. Prisoners were awoken at 5 am and had thirty minutes to get ready before the Appell (roll call); after work they had only an hour that they were allowed to spend with their families before the evening roll call. Women were regularly subjected to sexual assault by SS guards.
Children's barracks
Hirsch persuaded Arno Böhm to allocate a barracks, Block 31, for children younger than fourteen, and became the overseer of this barracks. In this arrangement, the children lived with their parents at night and spent the day at the special barracks. Hirsch persuaded the guards that it would be in their interest to have the children learn German. Based on the children's homes at Theresienstadt, Hirsch organized an education system intended to preserve the children's morale. Children were awoken early for breakfast and calisthenics, and received six hours of instruction daily in small groups, segregated by age, led by teachers recruited from youth workers at Theresienstadt. The subjects taught included history, music, and Judaism, in Czech, as well as a few German phrases to recite at inspections.
Because there were only twelve books and almost no supplies, the teachers had to recite lessons from memory, often based on imagination and storytelling. The children's lack of education—they had been excluded from school even before their deportation—made their task more difficult. A chorus rehearsed regularly; a children's opera was performed; and supplies were scrounged in order to decorate the walls of the barracks, which were painted with Disney characters by Dina Gottliebová. A production of Five Minutes in Robinson's Kingdom, a Czech adaptation of Robinson Crusoe written by one of the carers, was rehearsed and performed. Children played concentration camp-related games, such as "Lagerältester and Blockältester", "Appell" (roll call), and even "gas chamber". Because the block was so orderly, it was shown off to SS men who worked in other parts of the camp. SS men who directly participated in the extermination process, especially Josef Mengele, visited frequently and helped organize better food for the children.