The Holocaust: A Literature-Based Thematic Unit

 In October of 1941,
the town of Terezin became Theresienstadt, a ghetto run by Jews. All non-Jews
were evacuated from the town. The Germans advertised it as the model ghetto.
They could pay tens of thousands of marks for the privilege of living in the
ghetto where SS troops would not be. The famous artists, musicians, and writers
of the time paid to live here but found that they had been deceived about the
conditions.

On June
23, 1944, the International Red Cross sent a commission to inspect
the ghetto. The Germans spent much time leaning up the ghetto and hired actors
to play satisfied Jews. They also made a film of this fictional version of
Terezin to how the world how well they were treating the Jews. The day after
the film was completed, the famous German actor, Kurt Gerron, who had played a
major role in the film, was sent to Auschwitz,
where he died in the gas chambers.

A well-known artist named Friedl Dicker-Brandeis worked
specifically with the children of Terezin, telling them stories and having them
draw places and objects from them. Overall, the children of Theresienstadt
created about 5,000 drawings and collages. Friedl drew little as she saved the
paper and paint for the children. She was deported to Auschwitz
on October 6, 1944
and died in Birkenau. 




A former student of
hers, Raja Englanderova, carried on her work. On a day late in August of 1945,
Raja entrusted Willy Groag with two suitcases of the children�s drawings. He
took them to the Prague
Jewish community where no one was particularly interested in them. They sat on
a shelf collecting dust for ten years. Then, they were rediscovered and
exhibited. Now millions see the drawings and read the poems. The last Jews left
Theresienstadt on August 17,
1945.

 The numbers of Theresienstadt are staggering:

Of the 141, 000 Jews who arrived there from various places
in Europe,
�  33,
456 died in the ghetto
�  88,202
were transported to death camps in the East
�  Of
the 15,000 children deported to Auschwitz, 100
survived�none under the age of fourteen.