Theresienstadt: Hitler's gift to the Jews or way station to hell?

Abstract

During the Holocaust, over 140,000 Jews were imprisoned in the Theresienstadt/Terezin ghetto. I will demonstrate that the Nazis did not originally intend to create an illusory "model ghetto;" rather, Theresienstadt was always intended to be a significant component of the Final Solution. By examining primary materials in German, particularly documents of the chief implementer of the Final Solution, SS General Reinhard Heydrich, I will show that the Nazis established Theresienstadt/Terezin as a collecting point and transit camp for Jews who were then sent to concentration/death camps (referred to as the "East" by the Nazis). They later called it a Jewish Settlement, exploiting the artistic and musical activities created by the prisoners, thereby creating a propaganda tool to convince the world of their supposedly humane treatment of Jews.