The Double Fragmentation of Theresienstadt

When I shared this case with film expert Erich Sargeant, who in the decades of working for the British Film Institute had come across some analogous cases of ‘private’ censorship of problematic films his first reaction was: Are you sure that the disappearance of two thirds of the footage is accidental?

Theresienstadt research could hold a special place within Holocaust Studies since one of their earliest proponents was a survivor of the ghetto, H.G. Adler.

This applies specifically to the area of film. For this endeavour, a researcher with knowledge of Czech and German as well as Holocaust History and understanding of the arts was needed – this type of bilingual scholar of the caliber of a H.G. Adler, was almost extinct as a result of this very Holocaust. I will later explain why Adler – who had studied liberal arts – would himself refrain from investigating the film.

This line of research (started by survivors such as Erich [Otto Dov] Kulka with his “Theresienstadt als Tarnung für Auschwitz”, in the 1968 collection Theresienstadt) was and still is pursued by historians at the Memorial Terezín (Památník Terezín), just to name two: V. Blodig (1992) or T. Fedorovič (2016), or researchers who work in other institutions such as Helena Krejčová (https://​biblio.​hiu.​cas.​cz/​authorities/​296964). Their research has not always been acknowledged or developed by professors of history in Czech universities or the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

“Le Pen began to adopt a certain Faurisson-like rhetoric: in September 1987, he famously remarked that the gas chambers had been ‘a mere detail in the history of the Second World War.’” (Clifford 2013, p. 65)

It took seven decades until a compensation was agreed for thousands of foreign nationals deported to death camps on French SNCF trains: https://​www.​dw.​com/​en/​france-approves-60mn-compensation-deal-over-nazi-rail-deportations/​a-18539808. In the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) it happened even later, in 2018:

Cf. Peschel (2010) or Lanicek (2013).

Adolf Deutsch chose compositions by Mendelssohn, Krása, Offenbach, Pavel Haas, Max Bruch, Sholom Secunda (Shloime Sekunda), and Adolf Dauber.

This detail concerning the handover of texts and the “particulars of the participants” for Stbf. Günther can be found in an August 16, 1944 “Aktenvermerk” containing the name of Gerron, Zelenka, and Spier – possibly authored by Murmelstein (Alder 1958, p. 324).

On the level of the credits this could not have been achieved in 1942 when the cameras were operated by Propagandakompanie cinematographers. Even if the cameramen in 1944 were not ghetto inhabitants, they were at least Czech, meaning, they were not Germans and not SS/SD officers. For the audiences in question, the difference between a name like [free] Frič (Fritsch) and [imprisoned] Hofer did not exist.

Probably the credits could have contained Czech names, as well, depending on the situation. The Czechs themselves probably would have avoided being credited even in 1944.

Všudybylovo dobrodružství /The Adventures of a Ubiquitous Fellow (1936, IRE-film) https://​www.​filmovyprehled.​cz/​cs/​film/​398585/​vsudybylovo-dobrodruzstvi

According to E. Strusková this scene was censord by the Germans and did not become part of the finished film. “Luckily Ivan Frič preserved it in his archive and gave it to Karel Margry who donated a copy to the Památníku Terezín.” (“Závěr byl pro esesmany nepřijatelný, naštěstí výstřižek filmu uchoval Ivan Frič ve svém archivu. Po létech jej předal Karlu Margrymu, který jeho kopii věnoval Památníku Terezín.” Strusková 200a, p. 34)

H.G. Adler (1955, p. 142) speaks of girls made to swim without clothes but does not mention the filming (it can be found in a Czechoslovak publication: Hans Hofer 1968, p. 196). The story of the salacious Herbert Otto seems to have quickly made its rounds after the return of the surviving girls, who had been victims of the casting carried by the Obersturmführer from Kulmhof. They clearly would have felt uncomfortable if this film material ever surfaced. In this respect, in the eyes of some, the early stage of the filming proved even more shameful than the final stage, which was overseen entirely by professionals and lacking the rumours of ´indecent’ images.

Ladra’s testimony is the most detailed mentioned that the film material “disappeaperd in the ghetto”: “Lázně pro Němce a četníky – ve Vrchlabí, v lázních byl natáčen film, byla vybrána děvčata 14–20 let a dostala příkaz se během koupání svléci a koupat se nahá. Film byl určen pro frontu, ale ještě se v ghettu ztratil. Autor spolu se svým kolegou Kortusem dělali osvětlovače.” srv. Památník Terezín, A 3914 František Ladra (I have to thank Eva Strusková and Tomáš Fedorovič for pointing out this source to me) (https://​portal.​ehri-project.​eu/​units/​cz-002302-vzpom%C3%ADnky_​pro_​ehri-a_​3914)

Margalit Shlain: Dutch and Danish Jews in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, https://​bterezin.​org.​il/​wp-content/​uploads/​2019/​07/​Dutch-and-Danish-Jews-in-the-Theresienstadt-Ghetto-Dr.​-Margalit-Shlain.​pdf

However, “Benjamin Murmelstein noted that on April 6 Rahm ‘was lying in bed with a fever’: ‘Ausgerechnet am 6. April, als ich die Kommission des Internationalen Roten Kreuzes empfangen sollte, lag Rahm mit Fieber im Bett. […] Eichmann kam in Begleitung des Befehlshabers der Sicherheitspolizei in Prag, Weinmann, gefolgt von Möhs, Günther und dessen Sekretär Günel.’ (Murmelstein 2014: 242–243). This means that either there was no screening on April 6 or Rahm lied about his attendance, so we have to cross him off both the lists of people who attended the premiere and the eyewitnesses.” (Drubek 2016)

Cf. the correction by Eva Strusková (2018): Lotte Porges – The Story Behind the Photograph. https://​blog.​ehri-project.​eu/​2018/​05/​08/​lotte-porges/​

Michael Bornkamp, for example, was under the surveillance of the StB after having been in contact with F.R.Kraus. Kraus’ son Ronald (1927–1996) – codename Prago – is listed in the ABS (Archiv bezpečnostních složek, in Prague, containing the former StB files) archive on two occasions, 1967 and 1974. https://​www.​abscr.​cz

This is what F.R. Kraus told P.M. Bornkamp on April 15, 1964, one day after their visit to Terezín:

“Bornkamp: Unter welchen Umständen fanden sie das Drehbuch? Kraus: Ja, also das war eine ganz interessante Angelegenheit. Eigentlich spielte sich die ganze Sache in einer unserer Synagogen ab, wo ich immer am Freitag zusammenkomme mit Bekannten, und Auschwitzer Brüdern und Theresienstädter Freunden, da sagt eben ein Kollege von mir, sagt zu mir: Weisst Du, ich habe da am Dachboden bei uns in unserem Haus einen Koffer liegen, der Koffer liegt da schon, was weiss ich, seit dem Jahre 45, als ich aus Theresienstadt zurückkam, und zwar übernahm ich den Koffer nach einem – nach einem Cousin von mir. Dieser Cousin, der arbeitete damals, also vor dem Kriege eigentlich, in der Filmbranche. […] Aber ich war ganz überrascht. Es war tatsächlich das Drehbuch für diesen bekannten Film ‘Hitler schenkt den europäischen Juden eine Stadt’. Oder ‘Das Judenparadies in Europa’. Ich habe über die Auffindung des Drehbuchs in der Presse ziemlich viel darüber geschrieben. Das Interesse war sehr groß.” (The recording thankfully was made available to me by his daughter, Karina Zeising).

The kinodokument – sometimes in the form of a special issue of the Soviet newsreels – was a mixture of investigation and indictment, presenting cinematic evidence concerning war crimes committed by the fascist enemy. Its culmination was the cinematic record of the liberation of concentration and extermination camps in 1944/45 (Drubek 2020).

Karel Pečený, Moje činnost za okupace 1939–1945. Státní oblastní archiv Praha. Lidový soud (LS), k. 521/46: „světlomety k filmování židovských bytů v Praze a asi dvakrát našeho kameramana“ (p. 41).

In 1963 Holub made another film, this time about an Austrian perpetrator in the Small Fortress of Theresienstadt, Stefan Rojko, Pohlednice pro kata / Postcard for the Hangman. Rojko was tried between September 1963 and April 1964 in Graz.

Film as instrument of the secret service can be traced back to Soviet film productions on Katyn (1944) and the liberated Majdanek camp, which in this case would constitute forerunners of the genre „Films as Evidence“ exposing war criminals in enemy states (Drubek 2020).

“An den einstigen Stellvertreter Adolf Eichmanns in Ungarn schreibt Kasztner am 5. Februar 1947: ‘Ich vergesse nicht leicht an [sic] diejenigen, die für uns in manchen Momenten Verständnis aufgebracht haben.’ In einer eidesstattlichen Erklärung, die Kasztner im Mai 1948 ablegte, ‘bescheinigt er, dass Krumey in Bratislava 29 Juden gerettet und in Theresienstadt sich,Befehlen, die die Vernichtung von ungefähr 30 000 Häftlingen bezweckten‘, widersetzt habe’.“ Thomas Kobbe, Eichmanns Helfershelfer in Ungarn Umstrittener Judenretter, WLZ-FZ-Serie über den ITS (Folge 19), 14.12.10

Cf. “Judenmörder in Freiheit. Hermann Krumey, ebenfalls einer der Organisatoren der Endlösung der Judenfrage, der für die Ermordung von Hunderttausenden in Auschwitz Und anderen Lagern verantwortlich ist, wurde ebenfalls auf freien Fuß gesetzt.” Neues Deutschland January 21, 1960. https://​www.​nd-archiv.​de/​artikel/​1747584.​judenmoerder-in-freiheit.​html This article appeared in early 1960, about the same time when Kraus published his article on the discovery of the script of Theresienstadt film.

This article from 2019 contains several photos of the operation, still popular with Czech audiences today: https://​echo24.​cz/​a/​SSmL7/​z-poradu-zvedava-kamera-se-vyklubala-nejslavnejsi-mystifikace-komunisticke-stb

“The film amateurs embellished their version with a story about a fire in a mobile cinema. An entirely new version was given by Vladimír Kressl in the above-cited Večerní Praha article. Instead of Schönbach, he mentions an unknown student at FAMU as the person responsible for finding the footage. In this version, the student is said to have found the film accidentally, while renovating a family home near Mšeno. Apparently, Kressl found this version of events more politically correct. Despite repeated questioning, Schönbach himself remembered no details of his discovery of the film.” (Strusková 2016)

Both the director of A film for 1.500.000 Swiss francs Milan Tomsa and the popular Curious Camera presenter Vladimir Branislav in the 1970s were removed from their professions: Branislav worked afterwards in reclycing (Sběrné suroviny): https://​www.​totalita.​cz/​vzp/​vzp_​0031.​php.

Strusková 2016 is the first to have studied the “Investigative and court materials against P. M. Zeising-Bornkamp & Gen.” (Vyšetřovací a soudní materiály proti P. M. Zeising-Bornkampovi a spol., V 7449. Archiv bezpečnostních složek, Prague; Obvodní soud pro Prahu 2, T 15/66. Archiv města Prahy.) Zeising was the birth name of Bornkamp (who died in 1986) as I was told by his widow, Helge: “Er wurde am 22. Nov. 1922 in Berlin unter dem Namen Paul Otto Hermann Zeising geboren […]. Er hat das Notabitur gemacht und wurde dann eingezogen. An welchen Fronten er genau gekämpft hat, weiß ich nicht. Er wurde auch verwundet. Nach dem Krieg wurde er in Hamburg durch die Engländer entnazifiziert. […] Unter dem Künstlernamen Paul Michael Bornkamp (sein Passname lautete Zeising-Bornkamp, Paul Otto Hermann Michael) arbeitete er freiberuflich als Journalist, Schriftsteller, Hörspielautor und Zeitungsreporter für verschiedene Zeitungen und Sender in Deutschland, vor allem für den Saarländischen Rundfunk und den Südwestfunk.” (e-mail to the author from Helge Zeising-Bornkamp, 19/10/2016)

There could not have been a major “commercial benefit”. Bornkamp’s film is not available on DVD, so it was difficult to see it (merci, Ivan Bierhanzl).

“Shortly after the Second World War, near the town of Mšeno, a seventeen-year old boy named Přemysl Schönbach discovered another part of the film (Fragment II), only to be identified many years later in 1964.” (Strusková 2016)

“Kraus knew he had laid his hands on a sensational scoop and he hastened to publish his story in the German-language Prague Jewish weekly Aufbau und Frieden. However, his article was marred by some very serious inaccuracies and ill-founded assumptions. […] By presenting the Weil papers as “the script for the Gerron film” and linking that film with (von) Ott(o), Kraus launched a fallacy that confused many historians and cluttered up historiography for years. Echoes of his misinformed claims could still be heard in the late 1980s (e.g. Herbert G. Luft 1983; Joza Karas 1985: 156; Alain Jaubert 1986: 74; Regine-Mihal Friedman 1988: 1703).” (Margry 2016)

Margry 2016 on Kraus; during the conference in Terezín in 2014 he made a similar statement concerning Frič.

“During the Aktualita film production, film frames and other fragments were smuggled out by the above-mentioned cameraman and editor – Ivan Frič. A 1960s investigation – of which more will be said later – revealed that Frič gave the box containing this secretly transferred footage to the former Aktualita cameraman Zahradníček after the Second World War. Zahradníček did not deny this, but no longer remembered what he did with this material. This footage has vanished. Therefore, the only material surviving from Frič´s collection are the photographs of the production which he kept at his own house over the ensuing years.” (Strusková 2016)

Zahradníček’s main problem after the war was that he had filmed for Aktualita in Lidice. It is not without interest that – according to Pavel Vrbata (https://​www.​ckkp.​cz/​index.​php?​option=​com_​content&​task=​view&​id=​82&​Itemid=​32) – he worked as an archivist in the Ústřední dům lidové umělecké tvořivosti (Central House of Folk Art Creativity; https://​www.​amaterskedivadlo​.​cz/​main.​php/​www.​tatobity.​cz/​pic/​main.​php?​data=​organizace&​id=​54). His personal diary, which is held in the NFA in Prague, could yield some information: https://​badatelna.​eu/​instituce/​Narodni_​filmovy_​archiv/​fondy/​?​s=​19

https://​www.​dni.​gov/​files/​NCSC/​documents/​ci/​CI_​Reader_​Vol3.​pdf, p. 24.