Nowadays Terezin, Czech Republic.
Ghetto (formerly an army barracks) created by the Nazis in Czechoslovakia as a transit and concentration camp.
Theresienstadt is famous of the large concentration of Jewish artists like Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, Hans Krasa, Siegmund Schul, James Simon, Carlos Tauber, Viktor Ullmann and Kurt Gerron.
Due to the presence of all these artists, Theresienstadt had a vibrant cultural life, for most people a way to give some meaning to the dreariness and misery of the camp.
In June 1944 an International Red Cross delegation visited the camp: the Jewish citizens were ordered to perform a masquerade after scrubbing the streets, cleaning the cafes and opening jewelry and food shops. The Nazis of course made sure there was enough food to make sure the children were laughing. After the departure of the delegation, transports to Auschwitz were continued without delay.
At the end of 1944, the Jewish director and theater star Kurt Gerron was ordered to film a German propaganda movie about the 'happiness' in the ghetto, nowadays cynically called The Führer donates a town to the Jews.
Historians estimate that 140,000 individuals (including 15,000 children) passed through this small Bohemian town and that only 3,000 of them survived. 33,000 died in Theresienstadt itself and 87,000 others were murdered in the extermination camps of Auschwitz, Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Majdanek, Treblinka and others.