Posters Artwork Documents

"The Beautiful Game" - Theresienstadt.

Kurt Gerron (under SS supervision)

Association football game taking place in parade ground of the "Larger Fortress", Theresienstadt, Bohemia, 1944. Theresienstadt was a peculiar place, resulting from a peculiar concept. Built as a fortress complex in the 18th century by the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, the "Lesser Fortress" was used for most of the war as a political prison by the Gestapo - a pretty nasty place in itself. The "Larger Fortress" was evacuated of its native population, and developed as a "model camp"/ghetto by the Totenkopfverbande, intended for occupation by higher status Jews from Germany. By and large, this was the profile of occupants of the camp through the war, although the geographical source went beyond Germany to include "higher status" Jews from other north European occupied countries and from what the Germans regarded as "more civilized" occupied areas in the East, principally Bohemia and Moravia. In the end, one wonders why the SS bothered. While the prisoners, by and large, were members of the Jewish intellectual and cultural élite, almost from the start, the camp was used as a transit facility, transiting Jews initially to the "Aktion Reinhard" camps, later to Auschwitz. Perhaps 30,000 people were actually killed in the camp through direct killing or ill-treatment; perhaps 90,000 were ultimately killed in onward-destination murder factories and death camps. Late in the war, the SS did seek to exploit the "upper crust" profile of the camp for propaganda purposes. This was achieved by tidying the place up for Red Cross visits and by the filming of a propaganda film (mainly by Jewish cinema professionals) entitled "Terezin - a documentary of Jewish Resettlement". The "tidying up" was a pretty major operation, involving the promotion (to an extraordinary extent) of cultural activities among the talented Jewish population and remodeling of the place to resemble something like a prosperous, productive "town". Overcrowding was eliminated by the simple expedient of shipping the excess to Auschwitz. Co-operation of the remaining Jews was secured by the promise of survival, seldom honoured. In the end, the remaining occupants of the camp were evacuated to Auschwitz, mostly tagged for immediate extermination. However, the chaotic way in which Theresienstadt disposed of its charges resulted in the survival of some 2,000 of its inmates in various other parts of the camp system. As far as I can determine, this photo is a still from the abovementioned propaganda "documentary", which survives in part, and in fragmentary condition. The movie's director, Kurt Gerron, and his family, along with his direct collaborator on the movie and their families, were deported to Auschwitz with orders for immediate liquidation, in spite of promises of survival. Figures. JR.