Theresienstadt Ghetto and the Red Cross
According to Steinacher, the appointment of Grawitz signified that the DRK "had for all practical purposes [...] turned into a National Socialist medical service unit" supporting the German war effort.
[6] Questioned by ICRC officials in the early 1930s, the DRK claimed that it had free access to concentration camps, where the inmates were treated well and enjoyed better conditions than the general civilian population.
[6] Theresienstadt was a hybrid concentration camp and ghetto established by the SS in November 1941 in the fortress town Terezín, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German-occupied Czech lands).
[16] Burckhardt pressured the DRK into visiting Theresienstadt in order to elucidate whether the ghetto was a final destination for Jewish prisoners or a transit point to locations further east.
[13] Adolf Eichmann (and possibly his superiors in the Reich Security Main Office [RSHA]) were eager to allow the visit, as part of a strategy of concealing the Final Solution.
On 24,[13] 27, or 28 June 1943,[17] DRK representative Walther Georg Hartmann and his deputy, Heinrich Nieuhaus, were allowed to visit the ghetto,[18] guided by German Foreign Ministry official Eberhard von Thadden [de].
[18] In his report, Hartmann described the ghetto's conditions as "dreadful" and "frightfully overcrowded"; the prisoners were severely undernourished and medical care was completely inadequate.
[24] The RSHA saw the visit as an opportunity to cast doubt on reports of extermination reaching Western countries, but wanted to prepare the ghetto sufficiently so that the ICRC delegation would get a good impression.
The streets were renamed and cleaned; sham shops and a school were set up; the SS encouraged the prisoners to perform an increasing number of cultural activities, which exceeded that of an ordinary town in peacetime.
[29][30] In late May, Paul Eppstein, Otto Zucker, and other Theresienstadt leaders were allowed to sign SS-dictated letters, which were sent to the Aid and Rescue Committee, a Jewish organization in Budapest.
[31] It is unclear to what extent the ICRC valued making an accurate report on Theresienstadt,[32] given that it had access to independent information confirming that prisoners were transported to Auschwitz and murdered there.
The next month, the Auschwitz camp administration allowed him to send a letter to Fritz Ullmann, a Jewish Agency representative in Geneva, with a list of prisoners deported from Theresienstadt.
[29] Swiss historians Sébastien Farré and Yan Schubert view the choice of the young and inexperienced Rossel as indicative of the ICRC's indifference to Jewish suffering.
[42] The visitors spent eight hours inside Theresienstadt, led on a predetermined path[43] and only allowed to speak with Danish Jews and selected representatives, including Paul Eppstein.
[29] Driven in a limousine by an SS officer posing as his driver,[44][24] Eppstein was forced to deliver an SS-written speech describing Theresienstadt as "a normal country town" of which he was "mayor",[29][45] and give the visitors fabricated statistical data on the ghetto.
[52] On 5 February 1945, after negotiations with Swiss politician Jean-Marie Musy,[52] Himmler released a transport of 1,200 Jews (mostly from Germany and Holland)[53] from Theresienstadt to neutral Switzerland.
[52][53] Simultaneously with the first liberations of concentration camps by Western Allied forces,[54] ICRC delegates Otto Lehner and Paul Dunant arrived at Theresienstadt, accompanied by Swiss diplomat Buchmüller, on 6 April 1945 and toured the ghetto, escorted by Eichmann.
Dunant was allowed to speak to Benjamin Murmelstein,[51] who had become Jewish elder after Eppstein was shot by the SS at the nearby Theresienstadt Small Fortress in September 1944.
Kárný and Israeli historian Otto Dov Kulka draw a direct connection between the report and the liquidation of the family camp in July, in which 6,500 people were murdered.
[61] More generally, Rothkirchen writes that the fate suffered by the prisoners of the ghetto "can be considered the touchstone of the negative role of the ICRC during World War II".
[63] Notes More interesting than the actual living conditions and installations in the ghetto of Theresienstadt was the question whether it had indeed served merely as a transit camp for the Jews and how many deportations to the East had taken place.
