Hájková, Anna (2022) Speculations about German Jews : elderly people from Germany in the Theresienstadt Ghetto. Yad Vashem Studies, 50 (2). pp. 55-84. ISSN 0084-3296.

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Abstract

For those 42,000 German Jews who were deported to Theresienstadt between June 1942 and May 1945, the ghetto meant the last chapter of a much discussed chapter of German-Jewish bourgeoisie. These were the people who made the Jewish middle class (Kaplan); and these were the people who demonstrated the concept of assimilation (Sorkin, van Rahden). But as much as the historiography has at length explored their social, cultural, and gender history before the Holocaust, we know very little how this foundational generation of German Jewish bourgeoisie faced the Holocaust. When we come across their description in some histories of Theresienstadt, these are largely stereotypical, and negative, depictions from the perspective of younger Czech Jews.

In this essay, I explore the world of Theresienstadt through the eyes of elderly German Jews. I discuss their demographics and mortality, their living conditions, their struggle to survive, and how they fit into the prisoner society.

Most of the elderly in Theresienstadt died within a few months after arrival of diseases, shock, and malnutrition, or were sent to death camps in the East. A smaller group, though, lived on, and turned out to be open and curious about their new environment, however coerced. The German elderly made new acquaintances, learned their way in the ghetto, acquired new skills and found new jobs. Many of them even learned rudimentary Czech. Even though almost everyone in Theresienstadt spoke German, Czech was the language of power. In the letters of the old German Jews to friends, and their diaries, little Czech expressions found their way: polička instead of Regal (shelf), hubička instead of Kuss (kiss). The old German Jews were often enthusiastic about the cultural production in Theresienstadt, and lobbied for cultural events that catered to their taste: Goethe or Schiller instead of František Langer.

Observing the old German Jews in Theresienstadt offers key new insights about the habitus and values of the bourgeois, assimilated, and urban German Jews of the generation 1860-1880, people such as Leo Baeck, Alfred Philippson, and Elsa Bernstein who stand paradigmatically for the German Jewish history of the Wilhelmine empire and the Weimar Republic.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D731 World War II D History General and Old World > DD Germany H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts > History
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Theresienstadt (Concentration camp), Concentration camps -- Czech Republic -- Terezín (Ústecký kraj), World War, 1939-1945 -- Concentration camps -- Czech Republic -- Terezín (Ústecký kraj) , Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Czech Republic -- Terezín (Ústecký kraj) , Jews, German -- Czech Republic -- Terezín (Ústecký kraj) -- Social conditions, Older Jews -- Czech Republic -- Terezín (Ústecký kraj) -- Social conditions, Jews, Czech Czech Republic -- Terezín (Ústecký kraj) -- Social conditions
Journal or Publication Title:	Yad Vashem Studies
Publisher:	Wallstein Verlag
ISSN:	0084-3296
Official Date:	2022
Dates:	Date Event 2022 Published 10 January 2022 Accepted
Volume:	50
Number:	2
Page Range:	pp. 55-84
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
Date of first compliant deposit:	11 January 2022
Date of first compliant Open Access:	11 February 2022
Related URLs:	Publisher

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