Elaborating on the Subject of the Collections at Beit Theresienstadt – their Extent, Uniqueness and Ownership
 
The data below are up-to-date to 1999
[The computerization project began at the end of 2010 and this text will be updated after its conclusion]
 

All original documents and art works in Beit Theresienstadt’s collection were donated to the museum by members of our association. This means that the museum until now never bought any objects.
The collection encompasses 515 drawings and sketches by adult artists and 242 children’s drawings, 169 objects, including Judaica items, 23 sculptures and 19.902 original documents.
Beit Theresienstadt’s collection consists of nine sub-collections:

1. Beit Theresienstadt’s own collection
2. Trude and Emanuel Groag’s collection in the name of Ida and Heinz Fleischmann
3. Children’s creations and drawings
4. Original documents, letters and diaries
5. Utensils
6. Judaica
7. Photographs
8. Sculpture
9. Card index of the deportees

 
 
 Beit Theresienstadt’s own collection
 
This contains drawings by adults not included in the list of art work of the Ida and Heinz Fleischmann collection. These pictures belong to Beit Theresienstadt and were donated to our archives by members of our association. They have no uniform artistic characteristics except that they are all from the ghetto era. Among the creators are some artists (Leo Haas, Bedrich Fritta, Otto Ungar, Karl Fleischmann, Ferdinand Bloch, Charlota Borsova, Adolf Aussenberg and others), famous already before their imprisonment in the ghetto and some amateur artists (Willy Groag, Norbert Troller, Marketa Heller and many others) – young people, grown-ups and old ones who tried to perpetuate life in the ghetto in pictures. Among these we would like to mention especially those created by the architect and painter Albin Glaser who was in the ghetto from its first day until liberation. Albin Glaser worked in the ghetto in the Technical Department and knew the town very well. He initiated the creation of the mosaic floor at our Historic Museum. The collection includes about 20 paintings by Bedrich Wachtel who created in the ghetto superb oil paintings (these were already restored and newly framed). His main subjects were buildings, courtyards, old people resting on wheelchairs, blind prisoners and more. Very special are also drawings by Alisa Ehrmann Shek then 17 years old who drew pictures from the life of women and girls in the ghetto.
 
Trude and Emanuel Groag’s collection in the name of Ida and Heinz Fleischmann
 
The Groag collection named for Trude Groag’s parents – Ida and Heinz Fleischmann – contains drawings and paintings by grown-ups, children’s drawings and documents collected by Trude and Emanuel Groag during their time in the ghetto. They were in the ghetto from July 1942 until liberation. The couple, then already nearly sixty years of age, was brought to the ghetto from Olomouc. In the ghetto Trude as a nurse, tended to old people from Germany confined to sickrooms, listless and desperate. When she could not continue with this hard work that brought her to physical breakdown she worked at the mica splitting workshop and later teaching handicrafts to young children. She preserved the children’s works created under her tutelage. While working at the hospital Trude got to know the famous painter Amalie Seckbach from Germany. Amalie brought her paintings to the ghetto and painted there, too. Before her death she disclosed to Trude, where she kept the paintings. In the collection there are 61 paintings by Amalie Seckbach. Trude, herself a painter, immortalized the last days of the old artist in a beautiful drawing. Emanuel Groag worked in a painter’s workshop, copying paintings under Nazi orders and manufacturing illustrated texts. He was close to the artists and through his connections he succeeded to build up a sizable art collection. Having a developed sense of history he hid and preserved the paintings, letters and poems until the end of the war and after liberation – in spite of many difficulties, the Groags kept this treasure and brought it to Israel. Their son, Willy Groag, member of kibbutz Maanit and one of the founders of Beit Theresienstadt, donated it to Beit Theresienstadt.
 
Children’s creations and drawings
 
There are 242 items in the collection. Except for a few of them, they are the result of Trude Groag’s work with young children in the ghetto. Trude was an artist in her own right and in the ghetto she instructed children from kindergarten age up to twelve year-olds. She preserved all the creations carefully, together with the children’s remarks, if any. The collection contains drawings by children physically or mentally challenged. In addition to the drawings, the collection contains collages made of cotton wool and pleated paper strips, collages of wood and more. Trude hid the collection until liberation and brought it with her to Israel. These are unique works; there is nothing similar to them anywhere in the world. The collection contains also drawings and handicraft made by older children, aged about twelve years, these express what occupied the children in their day-to-day life in the ghetto.
 
Original Documents, Letters and Diaries
 
This is a rich and unique collection encompassing 19902 items: documents from various departments of the ghetto self-administration. Town planning maps, Orders of the Day, food ration cards, shower tickets, tickets for performances, passage permits, posters advertising cultural events, annual reports and reports by house elders, physicians and youth counselors. An interesting item is a letter by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, a Bauhaus artist, to Willy Groag, then director of a children’s home. The subject is education in the ghetto – researchers on education and creativity show great interest in it. Most of the documents were written in German and Czech and a large pool of volunteers translates them into Hebrew or English. Letters and postcards sent from and to the ghetto relate the fate of the Jewish families. An exciting document published in book form, is the children’s newspaper “Kamarad” (comrade) written and drawn by 12-13 year old boys from home Q309 during 1943 and 1944. All 22 issues of the newspaper are in the collection. Newspaper clippings, diaries and poems preserve the true picture of the atmosphere of life in the ghetto (edited in a book “Kar’u lo Haver” – They Called it Comrade, translation into Hebrew by Ruth Bondy). Another interesting item is the diary of a 17-years-old girl about life in the ghetto in its last year. It was written in German – in Hebrew letters, in case it came into German hands. The diary was translated into Hebrew, but not yet published. Another diary, by an old woman from Germany describes in text and drawings a unique chapter in the history of the Holocaust, not yet researched in depth – the fate of old people and the way they coped with Holocaust reality.
 
Utensils
 
The collection contains dozens of jewelry items, ceramic vessels, marionettes and woodcraft made by Jews in the ghetto. Most were presents or destined for cultural or other events. The marionettes are a unique possession of our collection. They were created through cooperation by a puppeteer who made the mechanism and children who created the bodies and the head. Two very special creations were made by a blind artist who sculpted figures from electric wire. Peter Ginz, a sixteen year old boy, reported on this man; he spent with him a few hours and interviewed him for the boys’ newspaper “Vedem”.
 
Judaica
 
This contains a number of items most of which we received from rabbi Dr. Richard Feder. Dr. Feder was imprisoned in ghetto Theresienstadt and after the war he became Chief Rabbi of Czechoslovakia. The collection arrived clandestinely with the help of officials of the Foreign Ministry.
One of the special items in this collection is a beautiful Hanukkah candelabrum, used by us at the traditional Hanukkah event.
 
Photographs
 
We possess a huge collection of photographs that includes pictures shot in the ghetto by the Red Cross or clandestinely by Czech gendarmes. There are pictures of Jewish families and members of Zionist Youth Movements – most of the subjects perished. The collection originates from gifts from many sources and from the member of our association Tsvi Hershkovitz. He collected many photographs and researched them, which enables us to identify part of the subjects.