Terezin

Through inmates' own voices from secret diary entries and artwork to excerpts from memoirs and recordings narrated after the war, "Terezin" explores the lives of Jewish people in one of the most infamous of the Nazi transit camps in Czechoslovakia.

Terezín, as it was known in Czech, or Theresienstadt as it was known in German, was operated by the Nazis between November 1941 and May 1945 as a transit ghetto for Central and Western European Jews before their deportation for murder in the East. Terezín was the last ghetto to be liberated, one day after the end of World War II. The Last Ghetto is the first in-depth analytical history of a prison society during the Holocaust. Rather than depict the prison society which existed within the ghetto as an exceptional one, unique in kind and not understandable by normal analytical methods, Anna Hájková argues that such prison societies that developed during the Holocaust are best understood as simply other instances of the societies human beings create under normal circumstances. Challenging conventional claims of Holocaust exceptionalism, Hájková insists instead that we ought to view the Holocaust with the same analytical tools as other historical events. The prison society of Terezín produced its own social hierarchies under which seemingly small differences among prisoners (of age, ethnicity, or previous occupation) could determine whether one ultimately lived or died. During the three and a half years of the camp's existence, prisoners created their own culture and habits, bonded, fell in love, and forged new families. Based on extensive archival research in nine languages and on empathetic reading of victim testimonies, The Last Ghetto is a transnational, cultural, social, gender, and organizational history of Terezín, revealing how human society works in extremis and highlighting the key issues of responsibility, agency and its boundaries, and belonging.

Playbook.

Written by a Czech Jewish boy, A Boy in Terezín covers a year of Pavel Weiner's life in the Theresienstadt transit camp in the Czech town of Terezín from April 1944 until liberation in April 1945. The Germans claimed that Theresienstadt was "the town the Führer gave the Jews," and they temporarily transformed it into a Potemkin village for an International Red Cross visit in June 1944, the only Nazi camp opened to outsiders. But the Germans lied. Theresienstadt was a holding pen for Jews to be shipped east to annihilation camps. While famous and infamous figures and historical events flit across the pages, they form the background for Pavel's life. Assigned to the now-famous Czech boys' home, L417, Pavel served as editor of the magazine Ne?ar. Relationships, sports, the quest for food, and a determination to continue their education dominate the boys' lives. Pavel's father and brother were deported in September 1944; he turned thirteen (the age for his bar mitzvah) in November of that year, and he grew in his ability to express his observations and reflect on them. A Boy in Terezín registers the young boy's insights, hopes, and fears and recounts a passage into maturity during the most horrifying of times.

In 1941, the fortress city of Terezin, outside Prague, was ostensibly converted into model ghetto, where Jews could temporarily reside before being sent to a more permanent settlement. In reality it was a way station to Auschwitz. When young Gonda Redlich was deported to Terezin in December of 1941, the elders selected him to be in charge of the youth welfare department. He kept a diary during his imprisonment, chronicling the fear and desperation of life in the ghetto, the attempts people made to create a cultural and social life, and the disease, death, rumors, and hopes that were part of daily existence. Before his own deportation to Auschwitz, with his wife and son, in 1944, he concealed his diary in an attic, where it remained until discovered by Czech workers in 1967.

The Nazi regime claimed Terezin was a model camp, but when one London reporter lands behind its walls, she uncovers the horrors of this concentration camp that often served as a stop on the road to Auschwitz. In 1939 Kája Makovsky narrowly escaped Nazi-occupied Prague and was forced to leave behind her half-Jewish family. Three years later and now a reporter for The Daily Telegraph in England, Kája discovers the terror has followed her across the Channel in the shadowy form of the London Blitz. When she learns Jews are being exterminated by the thousands on the continent, she has no choice but to return to her mother city, risking her life to smuggle her family to freedom and peace. In the present day, with the grand opening of her new art gallery and a fairy–tale wedding just around the corner, Sera James feels like she’s stumbled into a charmed life—until a brutal legal battle against fiancé William Hanover threatens to destroy their future before it even begins. Connecting across a century through one little girl, these two women will discover a kinship that springs in even the darkest of times. In this tale of hope and survival, Sera and Kája must cling to the faith that sustains them and fight to protect all they hold dear–even if it means placing their own futures on the line. Praise for A Sparrow in Terezin “Gorgeous and heartrending, a WWII story packed with romance, bravery and sacrifice, interwoven with a modern-day thread.” —Melissa Tagg “Cambron’s detail to history shines as readers are transported seamlessly from the warm, sandy beaches of San Francisco’s coast to the frightening ambience of WWII Europe.” —Kate Breslin “A testament to the past . . . to a time of both unfathomable loss and courageous sacrifice that we should honor in our hearts and minds.” —Beth K. Vogt A follow-up to The Butterfly and the Violin Full-length novel (97,000 words) with two storylines: one set in World War II and the other in the present-day Sweet romance Includes discussion questions for book clubs

An unusual memoir by a professional actress in Ghetto Theresienstadt. Vlasta Schönová, or Vava as she was known, began her theater career as a teenager before the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia. For a while, she was able to continue acting by passing as a non-Jew. After her deportation to Terezín, she performed, directed and wrote plays as a prisoner. Theater, she writes, invested her life with meaning and kept her alive, even in the most deadly circumstances. Based on a notebook the actress kept, Acting in Terezín is translated from the Czech by Vava's cousin, Helen Epstein, author of Children of the Holocaust and Where She Came From. It features seven extraordinary theater posters from the Terezín Memorial's collection. Acting in Terezín is excerpted from Vlasta Schönová's memoir Chtěla jsem být herečkou (I Wanted to be An Actress), published in Prague in 1993. A Hebrew edition was published in Israel in 1991 as Lehiyot Sachkanit (To Be an Actress) and translated into English by Michelle Fram Cohen (Hamilton Books, 2010). Both books describe Vava's life before the war in Prague, and after the war in Israel. "A powerful, original narrative, pungently translated, that reveals the vulnerability of women during the Holocaust and shows the reader a broad cast of characters – from rescuers with moral convictions to those who sexually abused their charges." – Eva Fogelman, Ph. D., author of Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust "I saw Schönová perform Cocteau in Terezín in 1943. Today I see the play as a piece of kitsch. Then, I was mesmerized by her performance. I was 18 years old and for an hour or so I was lifted out of the camp environment to somewhere in Paris... free." –Lily Reiser, MSW and Terezín survivor "As an artist, what I find most powerful in this memoir is how Vava transformed impossibly hopeless experience into something not only livable but meaningful through theater." – Rochelle Rubinstein