Terezin concentration camp. Concentration camps lost by Czech historians

Report by the trustee of the international foundation “Russian Prize” (Prague, Czech Republic) Alexander Viktorovich Gegalchy at the international scientific online conference “Carpathian and Galician Rusyns. Issues of national self-identification". The conference began its work on December 11, 2014 with the publication of an announcement with the program, and will last until December 17, 2014. On December 17, a final meeting will be held online from 15.00 to 17.00, during which its participants will discuss previously posted reports and answer questions received from site visitors.

The book “Terezin and Telerhof” by the famous Russian Galician V.R.Vavrika, captured by denunciation of a servant of the Viennese authorities, Ivan Ketsko, a village clerk in Manaev, Zborovsky district, as well as research by other Russian, Ukrainian and Austrian scientists leave little chance of adding anything to the picture of genocide in these terrible concentration camps. However, it seems appropriate to us to provide readers with information about the half-forgotten Terezin from a different – ​​Czechoslovak point of view.

Theresienstadt was founded at the end of the 18th century by Emperor Joseph II as a fortified garrison town. And named after his mother Empress Maria Theresa. All the buildings of the fortress bore the stamp of strict fortification architecture in the style of military-Aryan classicism. During the war, forts, casemates and buildings were ready to accommodate up to 15,000 soldiers and officers, designed to repel any attack by the warlike Prussians, and most importantly, to restrain their advance deep into the monarchy from Dresden, both by land and along the Elba River. To increase the defense capability of the fortress, as a last resort, provision was made for partial flooding of the adjacent ditches and lowlands. However, the fortifications were never used for their intended purposes, and in 1882. - when the former enemies concluded the secret “Triple Alliance” of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy, the fortress was disbanded. Still, for example, in 1910. The garrison of Terezin, in accordance with peacetime states, numbered 2996 people. Not far from the fortified city part itself, on the other bank of the Ogre River (Eger), there was a strictly guarded “Small Fortress” - Fort B. It became the state prison of Austria-Hungary and fulfilled this role until the very last days of the disintegrating monarchy.

December 5, 1914 Terezin prison cell N1 received a special prisoner - Gavrilo Princip. The murderer of the imperial Habsburg couple was sentenced to the maximum possible for a young man, that is, up to 20 years old at the time of the crime, a term of 20 years in prison. He was kept in prison in very difficult conditions in the fall of 1917. His left arm was amputated due to gangrene. G. Princip died of tuberculosis on April 28, 1918. Here back in 1915. His young associates and participants in the terrorist attack, the Serbs Nedeljko Čabrinović and Trifko Grabež, were also killed. Their comrade L. Dyukich went crazy from hunger and loneliness in the “Small Fortress” and was transported to Prague to die. All participants in the terrorist attack were in the “Small Fortress” under the strictest supervision. They were isolated from each other and from other prisoners, and until December 2, 1915. they, unlike other “serious criminals,” wore shackles weighing 10 kg. G. Princip was allowed to remove his shackles only in February 1916. At night they were tied to the walls. For most of them, the fortress became a “living coffin.” The Yugoslavs were buried secretly in the Terezin city cemetery. After the war, one of the Czech soldiers identified their coffins, their remains were exhumed in 1920. transported to the Heroes' Mausoleum in Sarajevo. I. Krančević and S. Stepanović lived until the death of Emperor Franz Joseph on November 21, 1916. and were pardoned along with the Carpathian Rusyns-Russophiles by his son Charles I Franz.

August 30, 1914 The first 800 interned citizens arrived in Terezin - men, women and children, Russians, “Russians” or Ruthenians from Galicia, Bukovina and Subcarpathian Ruthenia. Austrian official sources called them “Russophiles” and preemptively arrested them after the start of the war. The political justification for the Austro-Hungarian terror was the fear that cultural and other unions and organizations “directly or indirectly tried to annex these lands to Russia.” Transports to Terezin were sent on August 27-28, 1914 from the Lviv prison in connection with the offensive of Russian troops. Those deported along the way suffered from hunger and thirst, and from severe unsanitary conditions in overcrowded carriages. They got some relief at the stations in Pržerov and Prague. Czech residents and soldiers openly expressed their sympathy for Russia and helped the prisoners in every possible way. On August 30, the train arrived in Bogushovice, from where the internees were taken to the “Small Fortress”. At the beginning of autumn, there were up to a thousand people in Terezin. Prisoners were divided into groups in multi-occupancy prison cells, former stables, vacant warehouses and barracks. Women and children were placed in the headquarters building. The stables were considered the best accommodation - here they slept on the ground, but on straw, and they could move and communicate freely. The composition of the internees was quite varied: quite a lot of intellectuals (Greek Catholic priests, professors, doctors, students), peasants, presumably from the wealthy literate classes, officials and relatively few workers. Some of the internees worked on the construction of new camp barracks, the rest made figurines and snuff boxes from wood, and wove straw bachkor - bast-type shoes. Most suffered from idleness. Residents of Terezin and the surrounding area tried to help the prisoners in some way. In the winter of 1914/15. A collection of food and clothing was organized in Prague, which also demonstrated the sympathy of the Czechs for Russia. A touching letter from Rusyn prisoners to the main organizer of this action, Dean Josef Pask, has been preserved. Warm clothes helped the prisoners a lot - most of them were arrested in the summer and did not have winter clothes. In prison they were not given any clothes and not even soap. In the end, the prison authorities decided to allow small trade in the fortress with the most necessary things in order to prevent an epidemic. Local merchants used this relief to help the “Russophiles.” It is noteworthy that for this small intra-prison market, their own banknotes were issued - Terezin crowns.

Czech sources generally described the imprisonment of internees in the “Small Fortress” as “tolerable.” There were relatively few deaths, mostly among older people who suffered from previous experiences, illness and poor hygiene. Not a single child died.

On May 4, 1915, the vast majority of interned prisoners were sent from Terezin to nearby Boguszowice and from there by train to Thalerhof. In the specialized “Rusyn” Talerhof there was hunger and more difficult working conditions, and there were significantly more deaths. At the end of 1915 Some of the prisoners were drafted into the Austrian army. In general, the internment camps were disbanded in 1917. by order of the new Austrian monarch with the famous formulation: “All the arrested Russians are not guilty, but were arrested so as not to become them.”

After the departure of the interned “Russophiles”, the “Small Fortress” remained prisoners of both Czechs and Slovaks, Rusyns, Russians, Serbs, who were convicted by Austrian military courts. In general, they can be called “political and military prisoners.” The bulk of them were participants in various anti-war protests: desertion, abandonment of military units and garrisons, refusal to carry out orders, escapes, riots - Meuterei. From September 25, 1913 to July 18, 1918, military officials entered 1,538 prisoners of this kind into the prison register.

Terezin's main task during the war was still a prisoner of war camp. It was formed both in the main fortress and in the outskirts of the city. The number of prisoners of war varied according to documents from 2505 to 5959 people. The largest group were Russian citizens - Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, representatives of the Caucasian and Central Asian peoples. The second largest group were Italians, followed by Serbs and Romanians. Some prisoners of war worked in military warehouses in Terezin. On April 15, 1915, Russian prisoners rebelled while working in the mines in Ostrava. 16 of them were convicted by a military tribunal and transferred to the casemates of the “Small Fortress”. In Terezin, not only did people get sick and die. In the Russian camp they played football and gave theatrical performances - one-act plays and operettas of their own composition. In April 1917 Russian prisoners successfully performed Leonid Andreev’s play “Six Days of Our Life.”

On October 5, 1918, the Soviet repatriation mission was met in the prisoner of war camp, which was carried out in parallel with a similar Austrian mission in Russia in accordance with the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty. Several instructions from the Vienna military department have been preserved on organizing strict surveillance and possible counteraction to the participants in the action, for example, on inspecting only those groups of prisoners where “... we hope there will be no complaints.” Failure of the mission, however, was unacceptable, as it could entail retaliatory steps by the Soviet government. The documents mention the name of a member of the Soviet group, Dr. Frenter-Saprodovsky.

At the end of October 1918 the number of prisoners in the “Small Fortress” was about 800 people. The total number of dead buried in the Terezin cemetery during the war according to official records was 2,392, of which 1,060 were Russian citizens. About 1000 deaths were recorded in the fall of 1918. and next spring - due to the flu epidemic. It was not possible to estimate the total losses in Terezin, both among interned “Russophiles”, among political and military “criminals”, and among prisoners of war due to the chaos that ensued in the country. October 29, 1918 Czech officers of the local garrison took power in the city of Terezin. Things did not come to battles with German and Hungarian units. The new leadership of the Czechoslovak army took over the “Small Fortress”. Its protection was entrusted to Italian officers released from captivity. All “military and political affairs” were further investigated. Decisions on release were coordinated with the highest army leadership in Prague. There is no official decision on the liquidation of the prisoner of war camp. But it can be argued that their actual liberation began already on October 29, 1918.

The tragic events of the 2nd World War, when Terezin became a ghetto and a transit point for more than 140 thousand European Jews, to some extent overshadowed the events that took place during the 1st World War here in the “Small Fortress”.

Some of the photographs of the fortress and documents were taken by the author on November 23, 2014 with the kind permission of the management of the State Organization “Terezin Monument”.

Literature.

1.Mala Pevnost TEREZIN. Nase vojsko, Prague, 1988, 328str.

2.Miroslav Kryl. Prispevek k starsim dejinam Terezina. TEREZINSKE LISTY, c.9., 1978, str.29-49,

3. Uta Fischer & Roland Widberg. Theresienstadt – Eine Zeitreise. 2011, 368 S., Wildfisch, Berlin.

4. Archives of the public organization “Terezin Monument”. Dejiny do r.1939. Terezin. C.2521-12563.

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March 20th, 2013 , 09:09 am

The next stage of our trip to the Czech Republic was the city of Terezin, located in the Litomerice region in the north of the Czech Republic near the border with Germany. The city made an indelible impression. I still get goosebumps remembering the atmosphere that reigns in this place.

The fortress was built in 1780 - 1790. The fortress took part in hostilities during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866-1867. Since the end of the 19th century, the fortress also housed a prison, which was used as a prisoner of war camp during the First World War. It was in Terezin that Gavrilo Princip died of tuberculosis.

Theresienstadt is a Nazi concentration camp in the Czech Republic. Created in November 1941 on the basis of a Gestapo prison. During the war years, about 140 thousand people (among them 15 thousand children) ended up in this camp, of whom about 33 thousand died, and 88 thousand were deported to Auschwitz or other death camps and were killed. Terezin was liberated by Soviet troops on May 9, 1945.

02. One of the objectives of the Theresienstadt concentration camp was propaganda, presenting the so-called “age ghetto” as a model camp. Since 1942, after the Wannsee Conference, the Nazis began deporting elderly Jews here en masse from the territories of Germany and occupied European countries. Theresienstadt was distinguished by a very high educational and professional level of prisoners, among whom there were many scientists, writers, musicians, and politicians of international fame. Synagogues and Christian houses of worship operated there. There were lecture halls, magazines were published, performances and exhibitions were held. No cases of organized resistance have been identified. There were isolated escapes.

03. Place of execution of prisoners

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05. In October 1943, 476 Jews were deported from Denmark to Theresienstadt. Under pressure from the Danish government, the SS leadership decided to demonstrate a “model” camp to the Red Cross delegation. In order to hide the fact that Theresienstadt was overpopulated, the Nazis intensified the deportation of prisoners to Auschwitz. There they were kept in so-called “family barracks” in order to be able to present them to the delegation in response to questions about their relatives. After the departure of the “guests,” all prisoners deported to Auschwitz were killed. On June 23, 1944, a school, a hospital, a theater, a cafe, a swimming pool and a kindergarten were demonstrated to the Red Cross. The children performed in front of the guests the opera "Brundibar", written by the composer Hans Krasa, who was imprisoned in Theresienstadt.

06. The delegation did not have face-to-face conversations with the prisoner. At the end of the visit, the “guests” were shown a film by imprisoned director Kurt Gerron about life in Theresienstadt entitled “Theresienstadt. A Documentary Film from a Jewish Settlement,” better known by the unofficial title “The Fuhrer Gives the Jews a City,” used in published recordings and memoirs of surviving prisoners.

07. In 1945-1948 Terezin was used as a transit prison for the Germans. After the last of the prisoners was transferred to a new place of detention on February 29, 1948, the prison was officially closed. Among the prisoners were both active Nazis and simply local Germans, including children.

08. Museum of the Jewish Ghetto. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to get there. According to information, people who were concentration camp prisoners are still working there.

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14. In the post-war period until 1996, there was a military garrison in Terezin. The departure of the garrison in 1996 had a negative impact on the local economy.

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Tomorrow we will go with you to Cesky Krumlov.

*some photos of Terezin are taken from the Internet

Previous reports from this trip to the Czech Republic.

From the very beginning of its existence, the Nazi regime fought irreconcilably with its political opponents and residents, who were recognized as not having full rights as citizens. The first concentration camp for political prisoners was the camp in Dachau, which arose in 1933. Later, in connection with the “final solution to the Jewish question,” the Nazis updated the medieval model of ghettos - areas separated from the rest of the city, where the entire Jewish population was herded, and not just from one settlements, but also remote occupied lands. At the same time, concentration and extermination camps operated, where prisoners were taken to the last station on the road to death.

Ghetto Terezin (1941-1945)

Terezin was built in 1780-1790. as a fortress for the defense of the northern borders of the Czech Republic. In 1782, this military settlement received the status of a city, but its life was still closely connected with military affairs. The small fortress, which was only part of the fortress complex, was used as a prison for military and political prisoners during the Habsburg monarchy.

The most tragic period of Terezin's existence occurred during the Second World War. In June 1940, the German occupiers set up a Prague Gestapo police prison in the Small Fortress, and then, on November 24, 1941, a ghetto was formed in the city itself. This concentration and at the same time “passage” camp was intended primarily for the Jews inhabiting the then Protectorate of the Czech Republic and Moravia, and later - Germany, Austria, Holland, Denmark and Slovakia. Formally, Terezin was not a concentration camp: it served as a Jewish ghetto since 1941.

Why did the Germans choose Terezin? First of all, because the ramparts made escape from this camp impossible, and 11 barracks buildings made it possible to house a large number of prisoners here. In addition, the city of Terezin itself had a symmetrical organization: flat and wide streets provided a good overview of what was happening in it. The railway from Prague to Ústí nad Labem also ran near Terezín, which provided convenient transportation for Jews in both directions. It was also important that there was no other larger city that was located near the Protectorate’s border with Nazi Germany. The only inconvenient thing was that a civilian population (about 3,500 people) lived in Terezin next to the Wehrmacht garrison.

In 1942, it was decided to make Terezin a ghetto for elderly Jews, where elderly people who fought for Germany during the First World War, as well as representatives of the intelligentsia of the pre-war period - famous politicians, scientists, artists, etc., were to be sent. Terezin was not a camp of death. It served for the concentration of Jews and their subsequent deportation to the East. Most of the prisoners were here for a short time. Most often they stayed here for only a few days, after which they were transported to concentration camps in the East, some awaiting deportation for several months. Few stayed here for a year, even fewer were able to live in such conditions for 4 years. A total of 63 trains were sent from Terezin, in which 87 thousand people were deported to the East, of which 3,600 were returned.

Over the course of 4 years, people of different nationalities were brought to Terezin: Czechs, Germans, Austrians, Dutch, Danes, and at the end of the war - Hungarians and Slovaks. In total, 140 thousand people recognized as Jews passed through the camp, 35 thousand of them died right in the ghetto due to unbearable living conditions. At the end of the war, the last train brought 15 thousand people to Terezin in terrible condition, infected with typhus, which caused an epidemic of the disease and brought new victims. In total, 155 thousand people passed through Terezin, of which 118 thousand survived the Second World War. The liberation of the city went smoothly. On May 1, 1945, the Red Cross took control of the camp. On May 5, the last Nazis fled from Terezin, and on May 8, the first Soviet troops arrived here.

After the end of World War II, Terezin became a place of pilgrimage not only for the Czech people. Every year hundreds of thousands of people come here to honor the memory of the victims of the Nazi regime. In the second half of May, the Terezin funeral feast takes place here every year. On the site in front of the Small Fortress, the Terezin National Cemetery was built, where the bodies of the victims of the Terezin ghetto, prisoners of the Gestapo and the Litomner concentration camp were buried. Next to the crematorium there is also a Jewish cemetery where the bodies of 9 thousand victims were buried. In 1947, the Památník Terezín memorial complex appeared in Terezin, which is intended to remind the victims of power and violence during the Second World War.

In addition to Terezin, many units of German concentration camps were located on the territory of the Czech Republic. They arose directly in 1944 and even in 1945, when the situation on the Eastern Front changed radically. The Germans tried to improve the situation by producing more weapons, so they needed more manpower. While the Polish Majdanek camp had already been liberated by the Red Army in July 1944, labor camps continued to appear in the Czech Republic, causing even greater loss of life.

The women's concentration work camp was located in the Czech town of Hrastava. Near the city of Jáchymov, in the uranium valleys, the Germans organized labor camps in which French and then Soviet prisoners of war worked. There were similar camps near the cities of Gornji Slavkov and Příbram, at the source of the Vltava near the settlements of Bucina and Šumava.

Term "concentration camps" in the mass consciousness evokes associations with either Stalin or Hitler. Just like any mention of genocide in the 20th century. However, they almost never remember how it all began. And it began, if we do not take it, with the genocide of Russian people - or rather, Carpathian Rusyns on the territory of Galicia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It must be borne in mind that the genocide was carried out by direct order of the Vatican.

Rusyns- direct and purest descendants of ancient Rus'. In fact, “Rusin” and “Russian” are one and the same. “Rusyns” are mentioned in “Russkaya Pravda”. This was the name of the population of Rus', both Kyiv and Novgorod, and later Moscow and Lithuania. In the XVI-XVII centuries. this is primarily the self-name of the entire people Western Rus'– present-day Ukraine. It remained largely the same in the following centuries. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. a significant part of the Carpathian Rusyns lived within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the second half of the 19th century. The Rusyn revival begins, which was perceived by the Rusyns themselves as a return to belonging to a single Russian people “from the Carpathians to Kamchatka,” as well as from union to Orthodoxy. The word “Ukrainian” then meant “anti-Russian minority”(see N.M. Pashayev “Essays on the history of the Russian Movement in Galicia in the 19th-20th centuries”).

On the eve of the First World War, most Rusyn organizations in Galicia were closed. In 1913, the Marmarosh-Sziget trial began in Ugric Rus', in which 32 defendants were sentenced to a total of 39.5 years in prison for converting to Orthodoxy. In Lvov, just before the war, a sensational trial took place against two Orthodox priests Ignatius Gudima and Maxim Sandovich, S.Yu. Bendasyuk and student V.A. The Cauldrs, who spent two and a half years in prison without being charged and were then acquitted.

In 1914 already “ they grabbed everyone completely, indiscriminately. Those who only recognized themselves as Russian and bore a Russian name. Who was found with a Russian newspaper or book, icon or postcard from Russia. They grabbed just anyone. Intellectuals and peasants, men and women, old people and children, healthy and sick. And, first of all, of course, the Russian “priests” they hated... Thousands of innocent victims, a sea of ​​martyr’s blood and orphans’ tears...” (Yu. Yavorsky from the work “Terror in Galicia in the first period of the war of 1914-1915”).

Genocide begins. The reprisals were carried out on the spot, without trial. So on September 15, 1914, the Hungarian Honveds killed forty-four civilians in Przemysl. In 1915 and 1916-1917. two political trials took place in Vienna, during which the very idea of ​​the unity of the Russian people was accused and Russian literary language. Most of the defendants were sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment. In Lvov alone there were about 2,000 prisoners. It was then that the first concentration camps in Europe were created: Thalerhof in Styria, Terezin in Northern Bohemia, etc. At the same time, according to the testimony of the prisoner of Talerhof and Terezin Vasily Vavrik (“Terezin and Talerhof.” Lvov, 1928), “ was the cruelest dungeon of all Austrian prisons».

The first batch arrived there on September 4, 1914. The camp was a section of uncultivated field in the form of a long quadrangle five kilometers from the railway. At first they separated him with wooden stakes and barbed wire. Over time, the camp expanded. In the official report of Field Marshal Schleer dated November 9, 1914, it was reported that in Thalerhof at that time there were 5700 "Russophiles". Until the winter of 1915 there were no barracks. People lay on the ground in the open air in the rain and frost.

V. Vavrik says: “Death in Thalerhof was rarely natural: there it was inoculated with the poison of infectious diseases. There was no talk of any treatment for the dead... To intimidate people, to prove their strength, the prison authorities erected pillars here and there throughout the Talergof square, on which the already fiercely battered martyrs quite often hung in unspoken torment... Talergof slaves in the hot summer and in the frosty winter, beating them with rifle butts, they straightened their roads, leveled holes, plowed fields, and cleaned latrines. They didn’t pay them anything for this, and on top of that they called them Russian pigs.”. At the same time, Vavrik adds, “Still, the dirty tricks of the Germans cannot be equal to the bullying of their people. A soulless German could not get his iron boots as deeply into the soul of a Slavic Rusyn as this same Rusyn, who called himself a Ukrainian.”.

In total, from September 4, 1914 to May 10, 1917, at least 20 thousand Russian people, in the first year and a half alone, about 3 thousand prisoners died. The camp was closed in May 1917 by order of the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Charles I, who wrote in his rescript dated May 7, 1917: “All the arrested Russians are innocent, but were arrested so as not to become them”.