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Vedem ([We Are] In the Lead) was a Czech-language literary magazine that existed from 1942 to 1944 in the Theresienstadt Ghetto in the town of Terezín, during the Holocaust. It was hand-produced by a group of boys, among them editor-in-chief Petr Ginz and Hanuš Hachenburg. Altogether, some 800 pages of Vedem survived World War II.
The Theresienstadt Ghetto is known for its rich cultural life. Several boys' houses had their magazines, and Vedem is the best known among them. The magazine was written, edited, and illustrated entirely by young boys, aged twelve to fifteen, who lived in Home L417 (Heim L417, also "Boys' Home 1", a former school building [1] ), which the boys referred to as the Republic of Shkid. The content of Vedem included poems, essays, jokes, dialogues, literary reviews, stories, and drawings. The issues were then copied manually and read around the house on Friday night. For some time, it was also posted on the house bulletin board; however, it was decided to discontinue this practice because it was deemed dangerous in case of SS inspections.
The inspiration for the authors of Vedem was their teacher, twenty-eight-year-old "Professor" Valtr Eisinger, who was appointed to supervise the boys in that house . He fostered their love of literature and encouraged them to express themselves creatively, describing both what they witnessed (often in a humorous tone) and their hopes for the future. It was probably under his influence that the boys adopted a rocket ship, inspired by Jules Verne, flying past a book to a star, as the symbol of their house and of their magazine.
Eisinger himself never contributed directly to Vedem, but did add the occasional editorial or translation from Russian. The work itself was done by the boys, who wandered around Terezin looking for themes. Each boy took a nickname to sign their articles. This might have been obscure initials, a pseudonym, or some personal quirk like "Dummy" or "Bolshevik." Sometimes, the nicknames would change. For instance, one prolific contributor, Jiří Grünbaum, called himself "Medic Šnajer," "Socialist Šnajer," or just "Šnajer," depending on his mood. Hanuš Hachenburg contributed several poems and was an avid collaborator. Today, many of the contributors can only be identified by their nicknames, and their true identities are unknown. At some point in 1943, ten of the most prolific contributors began to refer to themselves as the "Academy."
The boys smuggled in art supplies to work on the magazine. They found an abandoned typewriter and used it to create the first 30 issues. The next 53 issues were made by hand after the typewriter ran out of ink. A boy served as lookout as the rest worked on the wooden table in the middle of the bunkroom, or while sitting on their bunks. If a guard approached, he would give a secret signal and the others would hide their work. [2]
One of the outstanding contributors to Vedem was "nz," or Petr Ginz, who at 14 was editor-in-chief of the magazine. At 16, Ginz was deported to Auschwitz, where he was gassed. A copy of his drawing "Moon Landscape" was taken by Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon onto the Space Shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated upon the reentry. [3] In 2018 a copy of the drawing was taken to the space again, to the International Space Station, by Andrew J. Feustel. [4]
The boys tried as much as possible to create a real magazine, even jokingly adding a price on the cover. The material included poetry, adventure stories, essays, and book reviews, as well as popular features such as the "Quote of the Week," chosen from among silly things the boys said. For instance, "Medic Šnajer" was once quoted as saying, "I am afraid to speak. I might say something stupid." "Embryo" was quoted as saying, "Football is the best game, right after Monopoly."
In one edition, a review of Uncle Tom's Cabin compares the fate of African American slaves with that of the Jews in Terezín, noting that until the deportations began, African-Americans had it worse because their families were torn apart; afterward, the suffering of the two groups became approximately equivalent. In the popular feature "Rambles through Terezín", Petr Ginz visits various institutions throughout the Ghetto, and interviews people there. His rambles include visits to the bakery, the maternity hospital, the fire station, and a very chilling ramble to the crematorium.
By 1944, most of the inhabitants of Home L417, together with most of other inhabitants of the Ghetto had been deported to the East and most of them perished in gas chambers of Auschwitz, and no more issues were produced. Of the 92 boys who participated in the effort to produce Vedem, only fifteen survived. Only one of them, Zdeněk Taussig, remained in Terezín until its liberation in May 1945. He had hidden about 700 pages of the magazine in the blacksmith shop where his father had worked, and brought them to Prague after he was liberated.
After the war, efforts to publish Vedem were thwarted under the communist regime of Czechoslovakia, but excerpts were smuggled to Paris, where they were printed in the Czech émigré magazine Svĕdectví . A type-written samizdat version was published in Czechoslovakia that same year, and re-released in the 1980s. This version was exhibited in the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1990.
Selections from Vedem, illustrated by art that appeared in the magazine, as well as with the drawings by other children in Terezín, [3] were published with an introduction by Václav Havel in 1995, translated in English as We Are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine of the Boys of Terezín. [lower-alpha 1] The editors of this selection included Kurt Jiři Kotouč and Zdenĕk Ornest, two of the original contributors from Terezín. The book is the winner of the 1995 National Jewish Book Award by the Jewish Book Council.
Terezín is a town in Litoměřice District in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,900 inhabitants. It is a former military fortress composed of the citadel and adjacent walled garrison town. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation. Terezin is most infamously the location of the Nazis' notorious Theresienstadt Ghetto.
Petr Ginz was a Czechoslovak boy of partial Jewish background who was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto during the Holocaust. He was murdered at the age of sixteen when he was transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp and gassed to death upon arrival. His diary was published after his death.
Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination camps. Its conditions were deliberately engineered to hasten the death of its prisoners, and the ghetto also served a propaganda role. Unlike other ghettos, the exploitation of forced labor was not economically significant.
George Jiri Brady was a Holocaust survivor of both Theresienstadt (Terezín) and Auschwitz, who became a businessman in Canada and was awarded the Order of Ontario in 2008.
I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942–1944 is a collection of works of art and poetry by Jewish children who lived in the concentration camp Theresienstadt. They were created at the camp in secret art classes taught by Austrian artist and educator Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. The book takes its title from a poem by Pavel Friedmann, a young man born in 1921 who was incarcerated at Theresienstadt and was later killed at Auschwitz. The works were compiled after World War II by Czech art historian Hana Volavková, the only curator of the Jewish Museum in Prague to survive the Holocaust. Where known, the fate of each young author is listed. Most died prior to the camp being liberated. The original Czech edition was published in 1959 for the State Jewish Museum in Prague; the first English edition was published in 1964 by the McGraw-Hill Book Company.
Peter Kien was a Jewish artist and poet active at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He died at the age of twenty-five.
Paradise Camp is a 1986 documentary film about Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, written and directed by Australians Paul Rea and Frank Heimans, respectively. Czechoslovakian Jews were first told that Theresienstadt was a community established for their safety. They quickly recognized it as a ghetto and concentration camp.
Ilse Weber, née Herlinger, was born in Witkowitz near Mährisch-Ostrau. A Jewish poet, she wrote in German, most notably songs and theater pieces for Jewish children. She married Willi Weber in 1930. She was voluntarily transported to Auschwitz with the children of Theresienstadt and murdered in the gas chambers, along with her son, Tommy. Her most popular book was "Mendel Rosenbusch: Tales for Jewish Children" (1929).
University over the Abyss is a book about the educational and cultural life in the Terezín ghetto. Authors Elena Makarova, Sergei Makarov and Viktor Kuperman have searched available archives, interviewed survivors worldwide and compiled the definitive summary of this nominally illegal but extensive phenomenon that included formal lectures, poetry readings, concerts, storytelling sessions and theatrical and opera performances, all in a setting that was a holding place for prisoners who were ultimately on their way to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.
Carlo Sigmund Taube was a Czech Jewish pianist, composer and conductor.
Voices of the Children is a 1999 Emmy-Award winning documentary film written and directed by Zuzana Justman. It tells the story of three people who were imprisoned as children in the Terezin concentration camp. It was produced and shown on television in the United States.
Helga Hošková-Weissová, also Helga Weiss, is a Czech artist, and a Holocaust survivor. She is known for her drawings that depict life at Terezín and her diary, which was published in 2013.
Bedřich Fritta was a Czech-Jewish artist and cartoonist.
The Pinkas Synagogue is a former Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at Široká 3, in the Jewish Town of Prague, in the Czech Republic. Completed in 1535, the synagogue the second oldest surviving synagogue in Prague and was completed in the Gothic style. Its origins date from the 15th century and are connected with the Horowitz family, a renowned Jewish family in Prague. Today, the synagogue is administered by the Jewish Museum in Prague and commemorates approximately 80,000 Czech Jewish victims of The Shoah.
The Theresienstadt Papers are a collection of historical documents of the Jewish self-government of Theresienstadt concentration camp. These papers include an "A list" of so-called "prominents" interned in the camp and a "B-list" created by the Jewish Elders themselves. The Theresienstadt papers include two albums with biographies and many photographs, 64 watercolors and drawings from prisoners in Theresiendstadt, and the annual report of the Theresienstadt Central Library. The papers were preserved at the liberation of the camp in May 1945 by Theresienstadt librarian Käthe Starke-Goldschmidt and later loaned to the Altona Museum for Art and Cultural History in Hamburg by her son Pit Goldschmidt. The collection was opened for viewing by the public in 2002 at the Heine Haus branch of the Altona Museum.
Alfred Hirsch was a German-Jewish athlete, sports teacher and Zionist youth movement leader, notable for helping thousands of Jewish children during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in Prague, Theresienstadt concentration camp, and Auschwitz. Hirsch was the deputy supervisor of children at Theresienstadt and the supervisor of the children's block at the Theresienstadt family camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
Valtr Eisinger was a Czech teacher and resistance fighter at Theresienstadt concentration camp. There, he made possible the publication of the magazine Vedem that consisted of poems, stories and drawings from young people, aged twelve to fifteen. He was murdered by the Nazi regime on one of the death marches.
The Theresienstadt family camp, also known as the Czech family camp, consisted of a group of Jewish inmates from the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, who were held in the BIIb section of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp from 8 September 1943 to 12 July 1944. The Germans created the camp to mislead the outside world about the Final Solution.
Theresienstadt was originally designated as a model community for middle-class Jews from Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. Many educated Jews were inmates of Theresienstadt. In a propaganda effort designed to fool the western allies, the Nazis publicised the camp for its rich cultural life. In reality, according to a Holocaust survivor, "during the early period there were no [musical] instruments whatsoever, and the cultural life came to develop itself only ... when the whole management of Theresienstadt was steered into an organized course."
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