Social Structure in Theresienstadt

Extract

In 1948, three years after the end of the war, the philosopher and psychologist Emil Utizt, a survivor of the Theresienstadt ghetto, published an eighty-page booklet, Psychologie des Lebens im Konzentrationslager Theresienstadt (Psychology of Life in Theresienstadt Concentration Camp). This was essentially a fascinating account of the social psychology of the ghetto as depicted by one of its inmates. But the book begins with an apology: “So much has been already written on concentration camps in general and on Theresienstadt in particular,” so there is no need for another one. Still, he continues, from his vantage point as a philosopher and psychologist, he believes he can add, albeit modestly, to existing knowledge. Utizt’s hesitation is tenfold more relevant in the 2020s. The Holocaust seems to have become one of, if not the most, researched topics of modern history. Hundreds of volumes have been written on ghettos and concentration camps, and a lot on Theresienstadt in particular. What else there is to say?