In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

62 9 Theresienstadt, 1943 Now we were prisoners. I did not feel panic nor did I sense much desperation in those around me. I had another feeling, a loss of respon­­ sibility , a feeling of being nearly carefree. The feverish effort of the last months to find an escape or at least a delay were over and the strain of waiting and then preparing for the pending deportation were gone. We felt almost as if we were being taken care of. The fairground hall and its adjacent courtyard in a busy sector of Prague was the assembly spot for one thousand people selected for each transport. We entered death row, without judgement and under the lie of resettlement, which we greedily accepted, denying our foreboding. The group ambience developed fast, the noise even resembled that of a picnic in a campground. Rage took over every time I focused on the terrible reality. Robbed of the freedom of decision making for the first time, I experienced that helpless passivity that would surround me like poisonous air for the next two years. I threw my luggage on one of the mattresses, lay down and closed my eyes. Through a fog I heard my parents talking with their new neighbors and in the background the undefined mixture of voices of a thousand human beings of all ages. Children cried, some were lost in the big hall, others could not understand why they could not go home.Their perplexity was understandable. It was also cold on this early morning in March and the discomfort of our new situation became painful. There was some unrest in one corner; I heard anxious cries for medical help. A young man was in convulsion. His parents explained that he was a diabetic in a hypoglycemic condition because he had not gotten his usual meal on time. This was the end of my inactivity. We organized medical and nursing services, which became even more necessary as truckloads of sick people arrived, some on stretchers. 63 At times, the shrill sounds of the SS commander were heard. He was a small, strong and rude man, always in a great rush to have all orders completed. There was a nervous impatience about this man who would hit before one could even answer a question. I think his name was Fiedler. It did not much matter who he was. He was interchangeable. Day, night, and day again fused into a new kind of perception of dragging time. It was evening twelve hours later when we entered a train to ride for the short distance to a faraway world. When the train stopped, we were in Theresienstadt. My first impression of this grotesque town was dreadful. Wherever I looked there were masses of people crowded into insufficient space. These crowds were moving as if projected in slow motion. It seemed as if people were trying to conserve energy. I met a few friends, colleagues and relatives. They all showed a certain bitterness toward us as newcomers who had had a normal life until now. Some tried a kind of smile on meeting us.There were enough physicians available but a greater need for nurses. A former teacher from my medical school advised me to seek such service as soon as I would complete my obligatory days of general labor. The stories of this place would be endless. It was neither a town nor a camp, but a community whose members had only distress in common. They were fatigued, hungry and angry.There was corruption, deceit and favoritism, as well as sacrifice and courage in helping each other. There was a distortion of quantities. Everything was either too much or too little. The children appeared too old in their seriousness, the grownups too child-like in their lack of emotional control. I understood I was not part of them. I was not yet acclimatized. The others who had been there longer felt the difference between us as much as I did; their envy showed in their aggressiveness toward us. My assigned labor on one of the first days was to clean the yard of a complex for the aged, a courtyard surrounded by little houses, two stories high with broken windows covered with paper. The housemother welcomed me and handed me an old broom. I began to work, slowly. With the slight warming up of the cool drizzly morning, old women appeared for their daily walk in the yard. I realized they did not...

Share