Music in Terezín: Cultural Continuity in Extreme Conditions

Professional Practice Under DuressFor more than three-quarters of a century, the artistic life of the Theresienstadt (Terezín) ghetto has raised profound questions.Originally conceived by the Nazis as a model community for middle-class Jews, it first received deportees from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark.Later, Jews from Slovakia and Hungary were also interned here.1 A unique combination of town ghetto, concentration camp, and transit camp, Terezín was, for a variety of reasons, also a place where artists were permitted -and in some cases even encouragedto continue their creative work.Beyond their shared Jewish origin and the 1The ghetto was established in late 1941 and liberated by the Red Army on May 8, 1945.The Theresienstadt ghetto was originally a fortress complex, founded in the second half of the 18 th century.It consisted of the so-called Small Fortress (serving as a military and political prison) and the Great Fortress (also called the Main Fortress), which included the town of Terezín.During the war, 140,000 people passed through Terezín, 90,000 of whom were sent further east to extermination camps.At the end of the war, 6,875 Jews from the Protectorate and about 240 from the territory of the occupied Czechoslovak borderlands -the so-called Sudetenland -survived in Theresienstadt/Terezín.