jun 1, 1944 - Theresienstadt Inspection by Red Cross

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In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians “to the East” for “labor.” In preparation for the 1944 visit, the ghetto underwent a “beautification” program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish “residents” of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.

image source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Czech-2013-Terezin-Theresienstadt-Arbeit_macht_frei.JPG/1200px-Czech-2013-Terezin-Theresienstadt-Arbeit_macht_frei.JPG

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