A Yellow Star Rising: The Role of Children’s Art in the Theresienstadt Ghetto

Molly Plante*, Department of History, West Virginia University, Morgantown, Wv 26506

Field (Broad Category): History (Human Engagement) 

Student’s Major: History 

Although it was only one of hundreds of ghettos established by the Nazis, Theresienstadt held a special status within the Third Reich by embodying three roles: ghetto, transit camp, and concentration camp. It is most well known as a front for National Socialist propaganda. To those on the outside, it was a “Paradise Ghetto” where all residents could live comfortably. Those on the inside knew that conditions within the ghetto were as cruel and far from paradisiacal as they could possibly be. Theresienstadt is further unique since it is here that children were not the first to be targeted for deportation to the death camps in occupied Poland as they were in other camps and ghettos. What’s more, there was a concentrated effort by the ghetto’s elders to protect the children from the worst aspects of camp life, as well as efforts to allow children to express themselves through art. My research examines children’s experiences and the mental and emotional changes they underwent during their internment in Theresienstadt through an assessment of poetry, paintings, and drawings they produced while imprisoned. The goal of this analysis is to answer the question-- how were cultural activities used by Theresienstadt’s Jewish leaders to provide more support to the children there? And additionally to explain how these cultural opportunities allowed for the emotional nourishment of the imprisoned children, which in turn helped them adjust to living in nearly impossible circumstances and survive in greater numbers than any other ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe. 

Funding: 

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: WVU 497-level course