A photograph of Jewish children in the Theresienstadt ghetto taken during an inspection by the International Red Cross. Prior to this visit, the ghetto was "beautified" in order to deceive the visitors. Czechoslovakia, June 23, 1944.
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A scene staged by the Nazis for the International Red Cross inspection of the Theresienstadt ghetto. The people are probably watching a soccer match. Czechoslovakia, June 23, 1944.
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A scene staged by the Nazis for an International Red Cross inspection of the Theresienstadt ghetto. Czechoslovakia, June 23, 1944.
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Photograph of a Jewish policeman in the Theresienstadt (Terezín) ghetto. The photo was taken on June 23, 1944, by a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross during an official visit.
On the day the photo was taken, representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Danish Red Cross, and the Danish government visited the Theresienstadt ghetto. In preparation for this visit, Nazi authorities carried out a beautification campaign. They transformed part of Theresienstadt into a facade meant to make the ghetto area and life in the ghetto look far better than it was in reality. Nazi authorities carefully choreographed and staged the visit to give the international visitors a false picture of life in the ghetto. The Nazis’ goal was to trick the delegation into believing that conditions in Theresienstadt were good and to try to cover up the mass murder of Europe’s Jews.
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On January 20, 1944, a Czech film crew took footage of a transport of Jews arriving in the Theresienstadt (Terezín) ghetto. The transport, which included 870 Jews, had left the Westerbork transit camp two days earlier. The train arrived on January 19, but Nazi authorities held the train overnight at the nearby Bauschowitz train station. They wanted to film the arrival of the deportees at Theresienstadt the following morning. This is a still shot from the January 20 footage. It shows Paul Eppstein (right), the chairman of the Council of Elders, giving a welcome speech. The man on the left is Dr. Alfred Wachtel, the leader of the arriving transport.
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