A short excerpt from the booklet essay by Roy Kift.


Theresienstadt - or Terezín to give it its Czech name - was originally built between 1780 and 1790, on the orders of Kaiser Joseph II and named after his mother the Empress Maria Theresa, as a garrison town in the Holy Roman Empire to protect the country from possible invasions by Prussia. Two years after the start of the Second World War, in October 1941, the Nazi occupation force designated it as a ghetto for Jews from the so-called protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. At the time the town still had a population of around 8000, most of whom were Czech civilians, the remainder being made up of a relatively small garrison from the German army. Since there were around 80,000 Jews still living in the protectorate (ten times the population of Theresienstadt) it was necessary to convert the town radically to accommodate them all.

The first two transports of Jews, in November and December 1941, were construction teams of mainly strong and healthy Jewish men whose job was to prepare the town for the future arrivals. The few exceptions were the so-called administrative staff (the Ältestenrat), under the leadership of Jakob Edelstein who were ostensibly responsible for running the autonomous Jewish town. In reality they had strict instructions to comply with the policies and orders of the Nazis. Despite depressing conditions, very shortly after the first wave of Czech Jews arrived in the town they began to organise cultural evenings with songs, poems and sketches. By the end of 1941 the Ältestenrat had even managed to persuade the Nazis to allow them to present so-called ‘comradeship evenings’ under the condition that the contents were first submitted for approval. And why not? For the Nazis the ‘comradeship evenings’ were a good way of keeping up the morale of the inmates, thereby stifling discontent. By February 1942 the so-called Department of Leisure Activities (Abteilung Freizeitgestaltung) had been created.

Cultural activities were a staple part of everyday life in Theresienstadt despite the horrific reality of the ghetto. Classical music was composed and performed by the inmates, there was a legendary performance of Verdi’s Requiem, there was a library, regular lectures and, most popular of all, light entertainment in the form of cabaret.

The most bizarre of all the cultural activities in Theresienstadt was the making of a fake documentary film by the Jewish inmate, actor and film director Kurt Gerron. Before the Nazis destroyed his reputation and ultimately his life in Auschwitz, he was a huge name in the world of German theatre and film. Kurt Gerron was the man who first sang the Mackie Messer Morität (Mack the Knife) in the world premiere of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera in 1929. He later went on to make a massive reputation for himself alongside Marlene Dietrich as the cabaret director in Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel, 1930), and starred in many other films including Die Drei von der Tankstelle (Wilhelm Thiele, 1930) alongside stars of the day like Heinz Rühmann. At the same time he was a highly successful comedy film director before he was expelled from the Babelsberg film studios in Potsdam by the Nazis in 1933, whereupon he fled the country. For the next six years he worked sporadically in Austria, France and Holland, before being captured in Amsterdam after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. From here he was sent to the Dutch transit camp in Westerbork and worked alongside other major Jewish entertainers in the camp cabaret. After a few months he was put on a train to Theresienstadt in 1944, where he set up his own cabaret called the Karussell.

By this time the world at large was belatedly beginning to sit up and take note of Hitler’s treatment of the Jews and the appalling state of the ghettos. Some of which like Auschwitz were even reported to be death camps where Jews, homosexuals, Roma and Sinti gypsies, political opponents and physically and mentally disabled persons were being systematically murdered in gas chambers. The Nazi propaganda machine was thus ordered to present a strategy to give the lie to such reports. Theresienstadt, with its high proportion of cultural activities seemed to be the ideal location. Here the Germans had a ready-made opportunity to show the world the “sweet lives of the Jews in a typical ghetto”. Theresienstadt was the Potemkin Village par excellence, an illusion presented as reality when it was 'embellished' by the Nazi authorities in order to deceive an International Red Cross delegation. In order to prepare for the ‘embellishment’, 7,500 inmates were sent to Auschwitz in May 1944. The town was then cleaned up and many of the buildings were freshly repainted and given the facades of normal Jewish shops complete with an independent Jewish bank. The Red Cross visit took place on 23rd June 1944. Cowed into fear the inmates obediently played their part in the farcical presentation, and the delegation was completely deceived.  The propaganda minister, Goebbels, was so delighted by the Red Cross whitewash report that he decided to reinforce his propaganda with a so-called ‘documentary’ film. And who better to direct it than the famous German Jewish entertainment star and Theresienstadt inmate, Kurt Gerron? Within a matter of weeks Gerron was ’invited’ by the camp commandant, Karl Rahm to direct the film in return for a promise to be able to leave the ghetto alive with his wife.  Although the invitation to film a fiction was morally repugnant Gerron had little choice in the matter. It was quite clear to him what would happen if he refused. Thus just two months after the Red Cross visit he began work on shooting the film which has come down to us under the title, The Führer Donates a City to the Jews (Der Fuhrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt).  No sooner was the film completed than Gerron was indeed allowed to leave Theresienstadt alive - but on a train bound for Auschwitz at the end of October 1944.

Roy Kift's complete essay, from which this excerpt is taken, appears in the booklet which accompanies the DVD release.