FAMILY CAMP THERESIENSTADT

During half a year, a part of Auschwitz concentration camp was organised like a ghetto. On September 8, 1943, two transports with 5.006 Czech Jews from the ghetto Theresienstadt arrived in Auschwitz. These transports were not selected, but altogether directed to a special part of the Birkenau quarantine camp. Women, men and children were indeed housed in separate blocks, but able to move freely in that part of the camp. The social relations among the prisoners could thus be maintained. For that reason, this camp section was also called "Theresienstädter Familienlager "( Theresienstadt Family Camp.)

The committal orders were affixed with the note "Sonderbehandlung (SB, meaning: gassing) - six months", which meant, that the Theresienstadt Familiy Camp inmates were deceived in their life expectation for six months because they did not know anything about the note and, due to the rather good treatment, thought that they were to be kept alive.

The Czech Jews were not assigned to labour commands, they were allowed to receive parcels and to write letters - they were even asked to inform their relatives. But despite that privileged treatment, 1.140 people died within these six months in the Theresienstadt camp section. After the time limits had ended, all those who had stayed alive were killed on March 9, 1944 in the gas chambers.

The Theresienstadt family Camp can be seen as SS-stage-production for the world outside the camp.

The function of the family camp was to reassure the population of the ghetto in Theresienstadt and to maintain that image of preferential treatment. In order to deceive the International Red Cross (IRC) which had annonced a visit, a so-called "Klein Theresienstadt" ("Little Theresienstadt") was to be erected in Birkenau.

After the successful visit of the IRC in Theresienstadt, the RSHA told the German Red Cross under its chief Oswald Pohl, who also was the leader of the SS-WVHA, that from that time on, no further parcels would be sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau any more. The deportees from December 1943 were killed by a second big gassing, the family camp dissolved by the end of June/beginning of July 1944. One the one hand, the feint was obviously successful, but on the other hand, could hardly be maintained because of the reports given by escaped prisoners.