HITLER'S GIFT: The Story of Theresienstadt.

This article presents a historical background of Theresienstadt, Czech Republic. Theresienstadt became a Nazi show place, a unique concentration camp designed to cover up the Jewish extermination program. Its inmates were not only allowed to receive packages from Aryan friends and relatives, but also from Jewish relief agencies operating in neutral countries. Theresienstadt was essentially a Potemkin village, a fabricated community behind whose flimsy façade destitution and death ran rampant. Most Jews deported to Theresienstadt were not distinguished and most of them either died there or were sent on to the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Even many of the camp's prominent Jews eventually perished. In the words of one of the camp's few survivors, Theresienstadt was a theatre of the absurd.