Theresienstadt Ghetto, 1942-1945 | Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

This record group  comprised the following collections, Moritz Mueller Collection; Adele Kohn Collection; Photo-documents from Theresienstadt, USHMM Collection; Theresienstadt, artifacts and photographs; Erich Lichtblau documents; Eva Beckman Collection; Theresienstadt correspondence, to and from the ghetto, from Ed Victor Papers

Moritz Mueller Collection is organized according to the collection level, would it be a collection of individually owned documents and artifacts or a collection of the documents and  artifacts reflecting multiple aspects of the ghetto life. Documents are digitized.

This record group includes several collections: Adele Kohn Collection, Moritz Müller Collection, Theresienstadt collection from the Victor’s Papers, Eva Beckman Collection and the Theresienstadt photo-documents from the USHMM Collection.

The Adele Kohn collection comprises official German correspondence, such as a deportation notice, ghetto inhabitants’ bank accounts management, i.e., requisition of Jewish deposits, work identification cards, etc. The documents relate to two people from the same family, notably Adele and Johanna Kohn. It is believed that both survived Theresienstadt. After liberation, they were transported to one of the interim transit stations in Switzerland. There are also included personal documents of the Theresienstadt period such as a list of personal belongings written on a piece of brown cardboard, Yellow Jewish Star, German-Jewish passport, and newspaper clippings of post-Theresienstadt time.

Kohn, Adele
Beckman, Eva

Moritz Mueller Collection

This collection embeds an individual level of a Theresienstadt daily life. From the first sight, a visitor hardly can distinguish and realize profound differences between the life in Theresienstadt ghetto and the ghettos in Poland.

Documents in this vitrine characterize the life in the ghetto from a perspective of its individual inhabitants and by the means of official ghetto documents.

Dichotomy of Theresienstadt ghetto lies in a permanent dualism of existence, on one side it was a Jewish cultural capital on Nazi-occupied Europe, a privileged incarceration center for German-speaking Jews whose past merit to German or Austrian Empires had been somewhat recognized by the Nazi regime. On the other side, the ongoing deportations to the East meaning ghettos and camps in Poland made it a conventional ghetto where life and death situation often were inseparable. There was also a third side, namely a highly structured and ample Jewish administration. The latter comprised the Jewish Council, a number of production department, Jewish police and various other Jewish auxiliary services. Cultural activity, formally not banned by the German administration flourished in the ghetto. Theatrical performances, literary circles, fine arts societies, youth movements and what not had become corollary to mundane ghetto life.

The afore described collections contains multitude of documents allowing as a whole to reconstruct the life in Theresienstadt ghetto. It shall be noted that individual liberties of the inhabitants were lesser controlled and restrained, however we shall not forget of impeding nature of theoretically unavoidable threat of deportation (transport) to the East, that is, to the camps and ghettos in Poland or the occupied part of the Soviet Union. German interference in the everyday ghetto affairs, perhaps were minimal and the role of the ruling Jewish Council and its department was largely paramount, the final say was still in the hands of the German administration. This dichotomy of relatively liberal dwelling on one side and a fatality of unpredictable fate on the other, was a phenomenon of the Theresienstadt ghetto.

Adele Kohn Collection

The documents in this collection relate to two persons of family relation, notably Adele and Johanna Kohn. It is believed that both survived Theresienstadt. After liberation, they were transported to one of the interim transit station in Switzerland.

The Adele Kohn collection comprises official German correspondence, such as deportation notice, ghetto inhabitants’ bank accounts management, i.e., requisition of Jewish deposits, work identification cards, etc.  There are also personal documents of the Theresienstadt period such as a list of personal belongings written on the piece of brown cardboard, Yellow Jewish Star, German-Jewish passport, and newspaper clippings of post-Theresienstadt time.

Author: Staff

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