"Performing for Survival – Cultural Life and the Theatre in Terezin"

by Bahar Akpinar 

[The two-part article below, Bahar Akpinar’s “Performing for Survival – Cultural Life and the Theatre in Terezin,” was published on 18 and 26 June 2019 in Şalom (https://www.salom.com.tr/SalomTurkey/haber-110941-performing_for_survival________________________cultural_life_and_the_theatre_in_terezin___part_i.html and https://www.salom.com.tr/SalomTurkey/haber-111020-performing_for_survival____cultural_life_and_theatre_in_terezin___part_ii.html).  Şalom is a Jewish weekly newspaper published in Turkey whose name is the Turkish spelling of the Hebrew word shalom (‘peace’).  It was established in 1947, is printed in Istanbul, and, apart from one page in Ladino (the language of Sephardic Jews), is published in Turkish.  (I presume the article below was subsequently translated into English for this posting.  Readers will notice that the translator uses the British spelling and style conventions.)

[Somewhere recently—and I can’t remember where—I read a reference to something called the Theresienstadt or Terezin Cabaret, which was an actual variety entertainment—music, plays, comedy sketches—assembled by the inmates of the Czech concentration camp. 

[I posted an article from 60 Minutes about music composed in concentration camps during the Holocaust on 2 March, and my friend Kirk pronounced it “astounding.”  The cabaret was even stranger because it included comedy.  (Czechoslovakia was a very active cultural center in those days and Prague was the hub of sophisticated cabaret entertainment.  The imprisoned Jews and others in Theresienstadt transit camp—it was a stop on the way to the death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau—brought the spirit with them.) 

[It was apparently an accident that many of the people interned in Terezin were performing artists and writers (including dramatists and composer-songwriters).  I read that Nazi bigwigs like Adolf Eichmann (1906-62) traveled to Terezin to see the cabaret.  Can you imagine anything more ghoulish?]

Part I - Setting up of Terezin as a Concentration Camp

Nazi concentration camps are places where nobody wants to enter voluntarily and be subjected to the bodily experience of being in a concentration camp, but once inside, no one can even mentally leave easily, either. Researchers have been attracted by the weighty, never-ending questioning that imprisoners [sic; Akpinar clearly means ‘prisoners,’ not the Nazis imprisoning them] go through in the camp whereby one encounters the darkest sides of one’s self [sic]. Recent research on the Holocaust has revealed documents with detailed information on the daily lives of the Jewish prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. We have thus been able to witness the depth of the existential resistance displayed by the Jews under [the] direst conditions in the camps.  A considerable amount of the evidence [by] which we can trace the resistance I am referring to, comprises the works of art produced by the Jewish prisoners during their time in the concentration camps, ranging from theatre, music, literature to various other forms of art. Sadly, unlike their work, none of the artists survived. [Some actually did.]

Until recently, the only art activities known to have existed in the concentration camps were the Women’s Orchestras, which were established by the order of the Nazis in the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps. The orchestras were initially founded in order to provide marching music for the Jewish prisoners as they walked from the barracks to their work stations and back. Their melodies accompanied the prisoners on every step on their way to death. We now know that the production of art in the Nazi camps was in fact independent of Nazi orders, secretly governed by the Jewish people themselves. 

The concentration camp where art production was most intensively carried out was the one in Terezin [Theresienstadt in German], where talented and well-educated Jewish artists from Central Europe had been forced to come together in a town a few kilometres away from Prague. This article will focus on the theatrical performances produced in Terezin concentration camp.  

Terezin had been designed as a garrison town, whose construction was completed in 1784. Contained within high walls, it was indeed like a ghetto. It had been home to Christian Czech citizens from the time it was built until its transformation into a Nazi concentration camp, which began with the construction of barracks. This period is called the foundation period of the camp.

The cultural activities in Terezin, that had mainly consisted of improvised sketches, poetry reading and singing in the barracks, started taking place within the first six months of the camp’s construction. These activities were organised even after a few days of arrival of the first prisoners. The leaders of the Jewish community made an application to the Nazi administration arguing that the struggle of the Jews in the camp who were now forced to live as prisoners to hold on to life through art should not constitute a crime, and asked the administration’s permission to organise cultural activities. The Nazis granted permission to the people who they knew were going to die soon. In the Daily Orders issued on December 28th, 1941, it was announced that a “friendship evening” would be organised. Due to the considerable increase in the number and quality of the cultural events in the ghetto over the next two months, in February 1942, the Jewish leaders decided to set up an administrative unit for their organisation, within the prisoners. Thus, Freizeitgestaltung (Office of Leisure Time Activities), which would play a significant role in the cultural life of the camp was formed, directed by a young rabbi, Erich Weiner [1911-44]. With the establishment of this unit, the foundation period of the Terezin ghetto was completed. 

The second period is the transformation of Terezin into a “model camp,” which began with the completion of the local Christians’ transportation from the camp. As soon as the last Christian exited the camp, the Nazi administration opened the doors of the barracks. The prisoners were allowed to walk freely in the camp, but they were banned from the buildings and areas used by the SS.  

In this period, although men and women continued to live in separate barracks, they were allowed to see each other during their time spent outside. All children lived separately from their parents, staying in the barracks reserved for children. The children’s caregivers organised various cultural activities including singing songs and playing games for children, who were unable to receive any formal education under current circumstances.  

In the summer of 1942, Jews from other countries speaking different languages arrived at the camp. Arriving on June 2, 1942, the first of these groups were from Berlin, followed in the next months by many other groups of Jews brought from various German cities. The new transfers led to a change in the demographic structure of the ghetto, particularly in terms of nationality and age. The German Jews who came later were older than the Czech Jews, the ghetto’s first residents. They had been told that . . . Terezin was a town with thermal springs and that if they donated their property to the state, they would be able to live the rest of their lives comfortably in Terezin. Almost all of the Austrian Jews were brought to Terezin within four months. Between June 21st and October 10th, 1942, the number of Austrian Jews who were brought to the camp was 14,000. Their average age was 69 years. Unprepared for the reality in Terezin which was nothing like what they had been promised, elderly German and Austrian citizens began to die due to hunger, illness and exhaustion, leading to a rise in the death rate in the ghetto. In September of 1942 alone, the number of deaths recorded in the ghetto was 4,000. The camp had now reached its highest population of 60,000 and the mortality rate was almost 10 people per day. By the end of 1942, with the increased mortality rate and some of the prisoners having been sent to other concentration camps, the population of the ghetto had dropped to 40,000.

The ghetto was relatively calm at the end of 1942, which marked the beginning of a new period. No new barracks were being constructed for the new arrivals, who settled in the houses previously occupied by civilians. Nevertheless, life conditions were still utterly strenuous. The prisoners were not allowed to own anything apart from the wooden bed they slept on and a few personal belongings on a shelf. They didn’t have any privacy, either. Food was prepared by the respected elderly members of the ghetto, cooked in a few kitchen areas and portioned out to the prisoners on the basis of their age and the work they do in the camp. The young prisoners who worked outside were given more food than the others. Water shortage was one of the greatest problems. Designed for a population of 10,000 people, the water infrastructure was not sufficient for the ghetto which hosted five times as many people. Bathing was based on a ticketing system. In such an environment where even minimum hygiene was not possible, contagious diseases had become rampant, further increased by infestations of lice, fleas and bedbugs.

The national variety in the population of the ghetto increased with the transportation of the Jews from Denmark and the Netherlands in 1943. Due to various clashes between the newcomers and the first residents of the ghetto, the Nazis appointed leaders from the Jewish community, who were allowed to settle in houses with relatively more comfortable life conditions. They were also given less responsibilities and provided with protective health services. Although the majority of the prisoners were aware that the Nazis consciously created the national distinctions and class differences within the Jews, they could not prevent the tension among the camp prisoners. Therefore, a court was set up in order to resolve the conflicts that arose. 

While the tension among Jews was increasingly gaining ground, a new development led to a significant step taken towards rendering Terezin a model ghetto. In November 1942, the Nazi administration granted a request by the International Committee of the Red Cross to carry out an inspection in the Nazi concentration camps and Terezin was chosen as the suitable camp for this visit. This was immediately followed by a request by the Danish authorities for a similar inspection, in January 1943, as 446 Jewish citizens of Denmark had been transported to Terezin. The Nazis made elaborate plans with the sheer purpose of concealing the reality of the concentration camps. Upon the approval of the authorities in Berlin, the “beautification” process began, preparing Terezin for its role as the secluded Jewish settlement that had initially been promised to the prisoners.  

The preparations paved the way to a new period during which the cultural life in the ghetto flourished. Terezin was beautified as if it weren’t the same place where 4,000 people had lost their lives just a few months back. As a result, life in the ghetto during the period between November 1942 and December 1944 proceeded along two lines: the fictional one prepared for the awaited visitors against the harsh day-to-day reality of the ghetto. Masking began with the opening of shops that have quite a limited variety of goods in the ghetto, with the aim of making it look less like a prison. 

Before the inspection of the Red Cross scheduled for December 1943, another important step was taken towards making Terezin a model ghetto: A new order to set up the Stadtversch[ö]nerung, the beautification office, was released. By the spring of 1944, the renovation works in Terezin were almost completed thanks to the hard labour of prisoners. The long-[a]waited visit of the commission consisting of one Swedish and two Danish inspectors, took place on June 23rd, 1944. The commission was accompanied by a Nazi officer, a few officials from the German Red Cross, and authorities from the Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The visitors began their inspection following a predetermined itinerary. Their first stops were the bakery, bank and the performance of Brundibar, the children’s opera [composed by the Czech Hans Krása, 1899-1944]. Despite having serious doubts about the quality of living conditions in the ghetto before their arrival, the members of the commission were impressed by what they saw in Terezin and wrote a positive report approving the conditions in the camp. The Swedish member of the commission, Dr. M[aurice]. Rossel [a representative of the Swiss Red Cross, 1916/1917-after 1997] had later stated in his official report that he had been amazed by what he had seen, adding that everything had been clear as daylight and that nothing could have been hidden from them.

[Some later reports argued that Rossel knew what had been done, but chose not to report it publicly so that he wouldn’t make the conditions worse for the prisoners.]

Following the success of the inspection, the Nazis decided to make a documentary about the ghetto, for which the well-known German-Jewish actor and film-maker Kurt Gerron [1897-1944] was appointed as the director. Titled “An Idyllic Concentration Camp: Terezin: A Documentary” (Das Konsentrationslager als Idylle: Theresienstadt: Ein Dokumentar Film), the documentary was shot in August and September 1944, capturing the last images of many prisoners before they were sent to their death.

Part II - Cultural Activities and the Theater

In December 1942, a cafe was opened in the ghetto, where prisoners could enter with a ticket and spend a few hours, as a preparation for the Red Cross Inspection. It soon became a place where prisoners, while sipping their coffees, could see live music performances by other Jewish prisoners like themselves. 

Thus, the cultural activities secretly going on in the barracks were transferred to public space. This transformation also led to a change in the performances themselves, which were now more structured, developed in line with the permissions and directions of the Nazis and their plans for propaganda. 

Despite being supported as part of the Nazi propaganda plan, the cultural activities in Terezin never ceased to be activities organized by the prisoners for the prisoners themselves. The program for February 1943 declared by the Freizeitgestaltung can help us understand the dynamism of the cultural life during the camp’s transformation into a model ghetto. The activities in the program can be classified as concerts, operas, and theatrical performances:

⠂Concerts: Twenty shows including; religious Jewish music, opera arias, Journey to Lands of Music (premiere), Raphael Schachter Hebrew Chorus (premiere).  [Rafael Schächter (b. 1905; probably died on the death march during the evacuation of Auschwitz in 1945), was a Jewish Czechoslovak composer, pianist, and conductor, organizer of cultural life in Terezín concentration camp.]

⠂Operas: In total ten performances including; The Bartered Bride [composed by Bedřich Smetana to a libretto by Karel Sabina during the period 1863 to 1866], Rigoletto [by Giuseppe Verdi with a libretto by Francesco Maria; premiered in 1851] (premiere), and The Marriage of Figaro [by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte; premiered in 1786] (premiere). 

⠂Theatrical Performances: Fifty performances in total including; The Grave (premiere) by Wolker, Youngsters Are Not Admitted (revue – premiere), a cabaret by Stolen Theatre, The Human Voice by [Jean] Cocteau [1889-1963], Cabaret with Skits by Thoren, songs from The Flower Bouquet by Erben, puppet theatre, and Women’s Dictatorship.

With a quick look at these plays which were performed on the small stages, it can easily be seen that the Jews in the ghetto had many national, cultural, linguistic and ideological differences. For instance, Jiri Wolker [1900-24], the Czech author of The Grave, was an avant-garde playwright popular among the communists. Another play, Youngsters Are Not Permitted, was written in German, with slightly obscene humorous elements in its songs and script. While The Bouquet, written by Karel Jaromir Erben [1811-70], was a classic from the Czech National Revival, The Dictatorship of Women [by Adolf Schütz, 1926-44] was a three-act comedy written in German in the early 1930s.

In the following months, there was an increase in the activities according to the list of Freizeitgestaltung: German theatre, Czech theatre, cabarets, opera and chorus performances, instrumental music, foreign language classes, various sports activities such as chess, football and table tennis were also included in the list. In this period, the Freizeitgestaltung had the power of saving the artists from the heavy labour that other prisoners were subjected to and appointing them to positions in art production. They even required that certain artists, though on rare occasions, should not be allowed to leave the ghetto. Among the responsibilities of the Freizeitgestaltung (Office of Leisure Time Activities), were the arrangement of stage areas for rehearsals and performances, the distribution of the tickets and the timely submission of the documents and texts associated with the works of art to the Nazis in order to deal with issues of censorship before artists started working on the scripts.

Meanwhile, performances in the barracks also continued to take place along with the official ones. One of the first prisoners sent to the ghetto, Ivan Klima [b. 1931], recounts below how theatre began in Terezin:  

“As a young spectator (I was 12 or 13 years old) I experienced several performances in the ghetto. I saw puppet shows and even operas: The Bartered Bride and Krasa’s Brundibar. To this day I recall the strange atmosphere that reigned during those performances: an atmosphere full of excitement, emotion, joy and tears. In Terezin, artists managed to stage several operas and plays. If my memory does not deceive me, the plays that were staged included The Bear by [Anton] Chekhov [1860-1904], The Marriage [b]y [Nikolai] Gogol [1809-52], and Camel through a Needle’s Eye by Frantisek Langer [1888-1965] . . . [.] In December 1941, my mother and I found ourselves in a living room with 30 women. I remember, how, sometimes in the evening, they sang songs. Sometimes songs by [Jiri, later George] Voskovec [1905-81] and [Jan] Werich [1905-80], sometimes folk songs or Jewish songs. As they sang, someone always stood guard in the hallway, to warn the others if an SS officer approached. They sang, even though it was difficult for the women to bring themselves to sing. They sang because it was a demonstration of free life in a hopelessly unfree environment. For the same reason, not long after, theatrical performance and even cabarets were born. (. . .) It was not possible for us in Terezin to lead the old lives we had left behind, to sustain our old habits and moral values. In Terezin, children would rather die voluntarily than be without their parents. In our new life, where the boundaries between the good and bad were blurred, a rotten potato, or a mouldy piece of bread was priceless.   

In addition to artists who painted and drew, there were many actors, directors, singers, musicians and writers in Terezin. Not all could continue to perform their art or create under such difficult circumstances. Some of them could stand the life in the ghetto only for a very short period of time and lost their lives soon after they arrived at the camp without being able to create anything. In addition, not all art that was produced in Terezin survived. It would not be wrong to state that many, or rather, the majority of the texts from that period vanished along with their writers. While reading the texts that reached our day, we should keep in mind the realities of Terezin. If it had only been known then that these texts were being kept, those who kept them would have been sent to Auschwitz or some other camp.”

As an actress who went on stage in Terezin, Nava Shan [1919-2001] recounts her days in the ghetto in her book [“To be an actress” – Chtěla jsem být herečkou in Czech; Li-heyot śaḥḳanit in Hebrew] as below:   

“I remember one of the first evenings in the camp. We were sitting in a crowded room on the muddy, bare floor. When people realized that I was an actress they requested that I “act something”. I gladly complied. I knew entire poems, parts of plays and tens of monologues by heart and that's how I started to circulate, in the evenings after work, between the barracks and blocks. During working hours, I only thought of what program to give in the evening, memorizing the texts in my head.”  

In the group of theatrical performances, I call the texts written in Czech and German, Terezin Plays. One of the texts in Czech is titled Radio Show, a composition of radio programs broadcasted on Prague 1 before the war. Written by Felix Prokes [1913-82], Vitezslav Horpatzky, Pavel Stransky [b. 1915. probably died in transit to Lodz Ghetto in 1941], and Kurt Egerer [1912-2000], the play has a fragmented structure resembling a radio broadcast, consisting of short comedies, folk songs, news, educational programs with themes such as morning recreations, agriculture, as well as folk songs, hymns, story time and sports. In addition to Radio Show, which is full of elements reminiscent of pre-war times, another play that draws attention with its time-space construct is a revue titled Prince Bettliegend, a satirical fairy tale written by Frantisek Kowanitz [1910-44] about a person skipping work as he was prescribed bed rest due to illness.  With many songs, the play’s fantastical construct of time and space does not match with the reality of the Terezin camp. The first scene takes place in a wizard’s workshop. The wizard inadvertently casts a spell on the prince, who, as a result, cannot move. The wizard’s assistants Hocus and Pocus decide to rescue the prince. Beginning as puppet theatre, the play ends with the Prince stating that he officially has the right to lie down as bedridden and so he does. Being bedridden is “a happy ending” for the play as well as for Terezin, where it is indeed a happy ending in the reality of a concentration camp to be able to lie down even in the narrow bunk beds crammed with people.

Written by Zdenek Elias [1920-2000] and Jiri Stein [1897-1945], The Smoke of Home tells the story of four men imprisoned during the Thirty Years[’] War [1618-48], which had started because of a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics and cost the lives of one third of the Czech population. Although relevant to the Terezin camp with its theme of war and religious difference aspect, the play was never staged in the ghetto. According to Holocaust survivors’ testimonials, the play was not written to be performed in Terezin, but life in the ghetto had been depicted in its text. The play, which was recited secretly as a closet drama in the barracks, is striking in the fact that it reflects life in Terezin through the reality of another old war.

Another play composed by the writers of Radio Show, namely Felix Prokes, Vitezlav Horpatzky, Pavel Weisskopf [1906-45], and Pavel Stransky is Laugh with Us, a cabaret which takes place in the post-war future as opposed to Radio Show’s pre-war times. In the play, a group of friends who return to Prague after their time in Terezin, look back on their lives in the camp from a safe distance. Life in the camp is treated lightly with a powerful sense of humour, rendering the play, as if it were, “a joyful resistance”.   

The most famous of the German plays written in Terezin is, From the Strauss Cabaret by Leo Strauss [1897-1944] and Myra Strauss-Gruhenberg. The play includes joyful, funny songs and sonnets. While a poem about the crowded conditions of the ghetto might include realistic lines such as “we are buried here alive”, the rest of the play does not present an immediate link to the daily life in the ghetto. Events take place in Vienna in the decade before the war. In an effort to recreate the atmosphere of the period, the play consists of sections titled Spa Music, Marriage Dialogue and Pierre Puts Everything in Order as well as songs about ghetto reality, such as Terezin Tango and Waltz in Terezin.

A play written in German is The Treasure, a puppet theatre penned by Arthur Englander. In the play, two children and a clown accompanying them travel to Africa in search of a treasure. On their journey, they live with an Arabic-speaking tribe and return home with a treasure that can save even the poorest who is at the verge of death because of hunger: Potato. The rest of the play presents differences because of two existing scripts. While in one the play ends with an announcement that the same story will continue in a second puppet play, in the other, the clown becomes the king and gives treats to everyone including the children and the elderly. Taking place in a fantastical time and space, the play ends happily in both versions.

Another play that includes fantastical elements is The Death of Orpheus, written by Georg Kafka [1921-44], who was a distant relative of Franz Kafka. Regarded highly by the residents of Terezin due to this relationship, during his days in the camp, Georg Kafka wrote many poems, stories, fairy tales, and scripts for the stage which were translated into German in the ghetto. Like the previous plays mentioned, The Death of Orpheus also contains references to mythological stories which do not match with the reality of Terezin. The scene with Orpheus and his mother is an example to such references. In his play, Kafka subtly asks questions that his audience, the prisoners in the camp, might be facing, such as, “how ready are we to sacrifice ourselves for our loved ones?”, or “is it possible to find peace in embracing death?”  

Written by Hans Hofer [1907-73], From the Hofer Cabaret presents ironic exaggerations, but at the same time accurate descriptions of the life conditions in the ghetto. Hofer’s writing is brave and powerful, addressing such issues as bribery and favouritism. The themes regarding the ghetto life are set in familiar melodies from Vienna, thus offering brief nostalgic moments to his German-speaking audience. The cabaret brings together in a humorous style the bureaucracy of the ghetto and the pre-war lives of the prisoners.

As with all works of art, the Terezin plays were also created out of an aesthetic concern. However, the plays are also inscribed with an existential meaning in the author’s will to survive, which best manifests itself in the time and space construct of the plays. Inclining towards the nostalgic, most of the plays take place in the pre-war period, but in a time in where it is possible to keep the memories of the life before camp alive, as well as holding on to the hope of a new life after the war. As recently discovered, the Terezin plays are textual evidences of the struggle for life that thousands of men and women in the camp gave by trying to hold onto both the past and the future through art.   

With respect for their memory. . .

[My analogy for these events—what image I had when I read this—is the northern lights.  On my trip to Alaska with my mother (see “The Last Frontier, Part 1: The Land Tour,” 26 March 2014), we saw the lights out the plane window on the flight from Seattle to Anchorage.  I wrote in my travelogue that it was "like something that really shouldn’t be happening."  And yet, it was.]