Theresienstadt: Who Goes on the First Transport List?

Jakob Edelstein is a Czech Zionist, former head of the Jewish emigration office in Prague. In the autumn of 1941, the Germans placed him at the head of the Jewish self-administration of the new ghetto they were setting up in the garrison town of Terezín, in German Theresienstadt. As Elder of the Council of Elders, the Ältestenrat, he runs an internal administration — housing, labour, food, care — under the absolute authority of the SS command, which issues the orders and tolerates no refusal.

Edelstein has convinced himself of a strategy: make Terezín a labour ghetto so useful to the Reich that its inhabitants would become irreplaceable, and thereby buy time until the war ends. But on this 9 January 1942, the SS imposes a measure that threatens the whole line: a transport must leave Theresienstadt for a destination in the East, and it falls to the Jewish Council itself to name the people. One thousand names to list. Refusal, the Germans know, will save no one: they will draw up the list themselves, or punish the entire population.

Edelstein must decide within the Judenrat's trap. He can draw up the lists while striving to spare the "core" of the community — caregivers, skilled workers, the young — to preserve what he believes can be saved; refuse outright to designate anyone and let the SS strike blindly; or try to quietly warn those listed of what awaits them, at the risk of panic and immediate reprisals.