Edita Ohrensteinová made this available to the documentation campaign.

On: 6.XI.1945

The Illusion ofTheresienstadt.

The deportation of Jews from the former Protectorate to Poland began in 1941; 5,000 individuals from Prague and 1,000 from Brno were brought to Polish ghettos. The leadership of the Jewish religious community at the time wrote and spoke out to prevent further transports to Poland, and the Germans reassured it that after these 6,000 there would be no other transports from the Protectorate to Poland.

In the meantime, Edelstein continued to work on his concept:

He was of the opinion that our only hope in the war was the Jewish workforce. He tried to convince the Germans that in wartime, when a workforce is vitally needed, it’s far better to put Jews to work within the Protectorate. And in the beginning, it seemed (after the Ostrava transport to Nisko in the fall of 1939) that he had succeeded. While the majority of the Jewish population in Germany and Austria that was able to work was deported to Poland, in the Protectorate, the transports didn’t begin until October 1941. A special Jewish office within the Jewish religious community in Prague was established to allocate and guarantee Jews for labor. When our efforts were thwarted by the Germans’ desire to isolate the Jews from the rest of the population and to concentrate them, Edelstein tried to at least ensure that this concentration would remain within the territory of the Protectorate. This effort was seemingly effective.

When a small group led by Edelstein and Ing. Zuckr went to Theresienstadt on December 1st, 1941, all were convinced that they would truly be able to prevent the deportation of Jews from the Protectorate into Poland if the Theresienstadt ghetto were to be established, as we thought at the time, as a Jewish town. Feverish preparations were already underway; plans were developed down to the smallest details and approved by the Office of Jewish Resettlement. But then everything turned out completely differently than we expected.

We built a Jewish town – what an illusion! When the gates of the Theresienstadt barracks closed behind us for the first time, we immediately knew that it was more of a prison than a Jewish town. It isn’t necessary to dwell more closely on the conditions at the time. When Hauptsturmführer Günther came to Theresienstadt during the first few days and Edelstein reproached him for deceiving us with false facts, he answered: Jetzt wenn Ihr im Dreck sitzt Juden, zeigt was Ihr könnt! And we were determined to show what we are capable of. Our most important task was to use all of our strength to wake people up from their lethargy, maintain cleanliness to prevent diseases, establish kitchens to ensure food, acquire mattresses and straw mattresses especially for the sick and the children, and work our way out of this mess in the literal sense of the word – without the means, but firmly believing that we could do it. And after the first terrible days of shock, mutual hatred, and bitterness, it seemed that we had indeed succeeded. Somehow, a kind of carefree life set in. Every one of us had a place to sleep and for his or her things, more or less had a job, and most importantly: there was a peaceful atmosphere. This was one of Edelstein’s greatest achievements. He was truly able to gain the population’s trust. The initial hatred of him and of his colleagues abated, and people started to like him. He gradually won over everyone’s heart. All of us trusted him, believed that he told the truth, that our affairs were his affairs as well and that he represented our interests before the Germans as nobody else could. Everyone knew that they could come to Edelstein with any worry or complaint, day or night.

And the Germans rightly knew that Edelstein presented a danger to them and they feared him as a leader of the people. No matter how hard they tried, they never managed to create an insurmountable barrier between him and the people. The Germans’ method was extremely transparent. Edelstein often said: They want to give us all kinds of possible and impossible advantages to make us forget that I am the representative of the Jews and to make us feel an affiliation to them, and most of all they want to cultivate hatred for me in the people. A small example to illustrate this. Food was cooked in a communal kitchen. The Germans demanded a separate kitchen for the leading coworkers of the so-called Self-government with the justification that even during military service officers take their meals separately from simple privates. Edelstein refused and the answer was: Communist methods!

Then January 1942 arrived: the execution of several inhabitants of the camp for the barest of violations of the camp's rules. The Council of Elders, the Jewish commanders of the barracks, members of the maintenance service, and police officers had to be present. Shortly thereafter, Edelstein wasn’t present during the second wave of executions. He announced that he wouldn’t look at them and demanded to be released from his position because he could no longer continue to be a Jewish elder under these circumstances. It was an exceptional act of personal bravery. His resignation wasn’t accepted, but his status with the Germans unsurprisingly didn’t improve.

January also brought another terrible thing: the first transports from Theresienstadt to Poland. All was in vain, the Germans’ intention was solely to transport Jews from the Protectorate to Poland through the transit camp of Theresienstadt. Why did we voluntarily go to Theresienstadt? There was no time for such thoughts, we had to help in any way we could. And so we lost another illusion.

How would it be possible to prevent the transports? Edelstein continued in his theory of the Jews as a workforce. We must prove the importance of the Jews’ suitability as a workforce for the Protectorate. In order to combat the intended concentration of Jews, we must send workers to locations outside of Theresienstadt and receive commissions from Aryan companies. We must establish workshops and factories in the ghetto. Hopefully, that would help us. It was an uneven battle against an opponent that outnumbered us. We managed to send a group of workers to the mines in Kladno and Oslavany, to be part of the crew that constructed the road near České Budějovice, and to do forest work in the Křivoklát region. Workshops and factories were created and we hoped that we were one step ahead. But not for long. The transports continued.

Hundreds of statistics, diagrams, and written reports were composed and we continuously provided proof that there was such a shortage of workers in the ghetto that, for example, it would be impossible to treat the sick if other workers were deported to the east, and so contagions that would threaten the entire surrounding area could emerge, etc. So many sleepless nights, so many reams of paper filled with writing, sophisticated statistical calculations and yet no success, or only minimal success, as once Edelstein was able to prevent a transport and here and there gain a short delay.

The spectre of the transports to Poland hung over the labor camp, the elderly ghetto, the settlement of prominent persons, and the other names of the phases of the development of Theresienstadt, and our work consisted in preventing the transports or to at least gain some time.

Suddenly, there was a new hope: in the spring of 1943, shops and a cafe were to be opened. What did this mean? Edelstein knew the answer: We were to be items on display. The Germans wanted to prove that they weren’t treating the Jews that poorly and present to the world the illusion of a Jewish town. We had to capitalize on this situation very carefully. The Germans were already expecting the visit of an international committee. There was talk of having radio, making a film, and putting on a comedy for the foreign visit.

But Edelstein would never participate in this comedy. On November 9th, 1943, Edelstein was arrested and accused of helping Jews escape from the ghetto to the enemy. The evidence: the census report didn’t match; there was an unexplained difference of about 50 individuals. This was a hard time for the ghetto. The roll call of the entire population, including children and the elderly, in the Bohušovice basin lasted 16 hours. There was an oppressive premonition of impending doom. The ghetto had no leadership; there was no contact between the population and the new leadership; the inhabitants didn’t trust their representatives.

Edelstein himself had no illusions about his fate. In December 1943, he was slated to be transported to Auschwitz with his family. His closest friends and colleagues once again volunteered to go with him. The Jewish warden who passed messages on to Edelstein in prison said that Edelstein wept at hearing this proof of friendship, but resolutely forbade anyone to join him. In the meantime, we learned confidentially that Edelstein was sentenced to be sent to Auschwitz, but we never learned more information other than that.

After December, 1943, Theresienstadt was even more gray and dreary. The atmosphere of trust disappeared from the ghetto along with Edelstein. Many of his colleagues from the section he led left at the same time as he did; they were put on the list of persons to be transported. Ever since that day we had the feeling that there was no concept to anything anymore, that orders were simply dealt and fulfilled.

Spring 1944. Stadtverschönerung.We all still remember the craziness that was summer 1944. We founded orchards and green spaces, children’s homes will all kinds of toys, a pavilion for children with a slide, a home for the elderly, model residential rooms, a musical pavilion, dining rooms, and concert a theater halls. All for the International Committee of the Red Cross. We can’t deny that we made use of these amenities ourselves and thereby a temporary period of relief set in. But it was a dance on the mouth of a volcano.

It was then that we learned that camp commander Rahm had sent a report to Berlin, in which he alerted to the growing danger in Theresienstadt, because officers of various nationalities, especially Czech officers, were allegedly meeting in groups. It was clear that this accusation presented a great danger. Shortly thereafter, the officers were registered and then the so-called workers’ transports began…….

On October 28th, 1944, Theresienstadt looked like a graveyard. Everything was gray……. A town without men. The contrast with the hot summer was too stark; winter was upon us, and still there was no end to the war in sight. What would happen to our men, children, and siblings? Would we ever see them again? And then there was the necessity to do all of the work in the ghetto in place of all of those who have gone. Most of the quarters were uninhabitable for the number of suitcases left behind, useless things, and furniture that was no longer needed. It was necessary to clear out almost all of the living quarters; the furniture had to be hauled away; loaded railway cars stood at the train station; we received an order to build buildings; the sick had to be transferred, etc., etc. And only apathetic and desperate women remained in Theresienstadt. We had to endure in order to see our family members again, and so women started to perform the most difficult men’s work. Would our men return, do you believe that? That was a question we asked ourselves a thousand times. They have to return. An illusion? In April, a rumor suddenly spread during the night that the the SS have withdrawn and that we were now being handled by the Red Cross. We sang throughout the night and praised the glory of the new Czechoslovak Republic. Until……… armed SSmen appeared. Was liberation also just an illusion?

Beginning on April 20th, 1945, in just two days 15,000 starving, sick, dying wretched prisoners from various concentration camps arrived in Theresienstadt after a torturous hunger and death march. Everyone was out on the streets and searching among the terrifying figures for a familiar face in hope and fear. Terrible hours and even more terrible certainty. The last hope for the return of our men, children, and relatives disappeared……. Again, the end of an illusion. A deep depression took hold in the camp, where there were thousands of people dying and sick with typhus. We had to pull ourselves together and help in order to save at least the remainder of those who had survived, using all of the strength we had left.

On May 8th, we were liberated by the Red Army. There was no real joy in the ghetto, no real jubilation, there was only one feeling – late, everything came too late. Only in books does liberation arrive at the right time.

Edelstein’s concept didn’t have to be an illusion — if the war had ended at least half a year earlier, most of the Jews of the Protectorate would have been saved. And the rest of the Jews here, who survived the concentration camps and Theresienstadt, do they not owe their lives just a little to Edelstein’s illusion?