Theresienstadt Ghetto Claimed 33, 000 Victims

Theresienstadt Ghetto was not a death factory (for all practical purposes, it was a transit camp to the latter) and the number of its victims was small compared even to Majdanek. Hence, it is known rather than estimated – around 33,000 (mostly from malnutrition and/or diseases).

Reinhard Heydrich announced at the Wannsee Conference that Theresienstadt Ghetto was would be used to house Jews over the age of 65 from the Reich, as well as those who had been severely wounded fighting for the Central Powers in World War I or won the Iron Cross 1st Class or a higher decoration during that war.

They would be held until they die from natural causes… which was a blatant lie. In reality, they were to be the last to be taken to killing centers as the Final Solution required murder of ALL Jews under German control – regardless of age or their service to the German Empire. Thus, in reality, Theresienstadt Ghetto was to be but a transit camp to the death factories.

The first transport to a killing center (on January 9, 1942) went for Riga Ghetto where they were promptly shot. Over 100,000 Jews entered Theresienstadt in the year of 1942, resulting in a peak population, on 18 September 1942, of 58,491.

To alleviate overcrowding, the Germans deported 18,000 mostly elderly people in nine transports in the autumn of 1942. Most of the Jews deported from Theresienstadt in 1942 were killed immediately, either in the Operation Reinhard death camps or at mass execution sites in the Baltic States and Belarus, such as Maly Trostenets, and Baranavichy. Many transports have no known survivors.

In January of 1943, 7,000 were deported to Auschwitz killing center. Interestingly, the RSHA archives were transported to Theresienstadt in July 1943, and stored in the barracks until they were burned on April 17, 1945.

By November of 1944, only 11,000 people were left at Theresienstadt, most of them elderly; 70% were female. On February 5, 1945, after negotiations with Swiss politicians, Himmler released a transport of 1,200 Jews (mostly from Germany and Holland) from Theresienstadt to neutral Switzerland. The Danish king secured the release of the Danish Jews from Theresienstadt on 15 April 1945.

The Red Cross took over the ghetto and removed the SS flag on May 2, 1945. The SS fled on May 6 and two days later the ghetto was liberated by Red Army.

In the postwar period, a few of the SS perpetrators and Czech guards were put on trial, but the ghetto was generally forgotten by the Soviet authorities… or the Western ones, for that matter.