Pohlednice z Terezína
Postkarte aus Theresienstadt
Postcards from Terezín
Installation of the postcards – a tour of the city
Cell 42, courtyard IV of the Small Fortress, headquarters of the Terezín Memorial, Czech Republic
May 29 till December 31, 2026
A 60-metre-long display of nearly four hundert picture postcards depicting the whole of today‘s Terezín through colour photographs of all its front doors, accompanied by historically accurate documentation of the concentration camp and ghetto period.
A postcard is like a letter with the door left open – half public, half private. It was an important tool in the Nazi system and was also used to create a false impression of Terezín – concentration camp prisoners were then forced to write, for instance: ‘Dear Mum, I’m fine.’
The installation is part of the double project Terezín – unfolding here in space.
Key dates in the history of the postal and parcel service between the ghetto [Terezín] and … more
… the Protectorate [and the German Reich], as documented in contemporary sources
1941
November 25
Limited two-way correspondence between the ghetto and the protectorate is permitted. It must be written on postcards, containing no more than 30 words, in block letters or typed, and exclusively in German. Censorship departments are established in the ghetto and at the Jewish Religious Community in Prague.
December 1
A ban on written communication between the two parties is imposed for four weeks; the ban also applies to internal camp correspondence.
December 10
In response to the violation of the ban on writing, the SS command post declares martial law.
December 15
The structure of the Jewish self-administration is stabilized; the postal department is incorporated into the department of internal administration of the Jewish self-administration.
December 24
Last known delivery of parcels to prisoners through the post office in Terezín.
1942
January 9
Prisoners are permitted to correspond with one another within the ghetto. Before each transport departs for the East, a post office is set up, operating for two consecutive days from 8 am to 10 pm, including Saturdays. For example, it is recorded as having been used on April 23 and 24 and on May, 7, 1942. Items of internal camp correspondence are marked with the letter ‘T’.
January 10
Illegal letter writers are executed.
February 8
Correspondence between the ghetto and the protectorate is partially restored; a monthly rota for the distribution of postcards is announced in the ghetto. The postcards must include, in the address field, the prisoner’s surname and first name, the transport designation and number, the building designation and the room number.
February 26
Second execution of the authors of illegal letters.
February–May
Postcards sent from the ghetto are stamped by the Jewish Religious Community before they are forwarded, stating that any reply to the ghetto must be sent exclusively via the Jewish Religious Community in Prague.
March
Postcards to the ghetto are stamped with a registration stamp by the Jewish Religious Community with the date of arrival and dispatch, the number of the incoming item, and censorship information.
March 5
Proposals for Terezín's own stamps, postcards and postmarks are created (not implemented).
first half of May
There is evidence of a stamp being used in the ghetto for the first time to correctly fill in the prisoner’s address on outgoing postcards.
May 14
The Daily Order No. 125 (Tagesbefehl des Ältestenrates) states that the commander’s office has declared a ban on postal communications with immediate effect.
September 1
The Daily Order No. 205 contains a notification stating that a general directive concerning postal services is being prepared. The Council of Elders was responding in this way to a growing number of requests from prisoners deported from Germany to Terezín for permission to write to their relatives. These requests were deemed pointless, as they could not be submitted to the camp command.
September 16
The Daily Order No. 213 contains the announcement regarding permission for mutual written correspondence. The regulations previously in force concerning correspondence with the ghetto have been revised. On the grounds that only a limited number of postcards are currently available, prisoners from the following transports were initially permitted to write: Transports I/1 to 13 from Berlin, II/1 to 10 from Munich, III/1 from Cologne, IV/1 from Vienna, and AK, H, G, J, K, L from the protectorate (i.e. the transports that had arrived in Terezín before December 10, 1941). The postcards were issued at the postal branches from September 20 onwards.
September 24
The Daily Order No. 219 announces the order issued by camp commander Seidl regarding postal correspondence. Each ghetto resident was permitted to send one postcard per month; there was no longer a limit on the number of words, and the postcard could be written in cursive, though only on the front. The back side was reserved for the recipient’s address and the sender’s return address. Correspondence was still only permitted in German. A special permit was required to send letters. Correspondence abroad was permitted to neutral and allied countries; to enemy countries, it was only possible via the Red Cross. The postcards were to be distributed at the postal branches from September 25 onwards. The order in which members of the individual transports could collect them was specified. It was permitted to send ‘care parcels’ (‚Liebesgabenpakete’) to the Terezín ghetto. This could be mentioned in the correspondence.
September 25
The monthly rota for submitting applications for postcards began, which already applied to all prisoners in the ghetto. It was divided into eleven stages and lasted until October 7, 1942.
October 9
The Daily Order No. 231 announces the order in which new arrivals, who could not be included in the rota on October 25, may collect their postcards. Over the next few days, a new rota is announced for those who had previously received a postcard. Attention is subsequently drawn to the fact that letters sent abroad must be written on one side only, and not on both.
October 16
Postal authorization for parcel shipments are introduced.
1943
January
The parcel service with the ghetto is permitted.
April
Parcel service with the ghetto is extended to include shipments from abroad.
April 4
Pursuant to an order by the camp commander, written correspondence with the re-education camp in Lípa is permitted in accordance with previous directives, the exact wording of which, however, could not be ascertained.
April 30
Regulations concerning correspondence with the work groups of Terezín prisoners in Oslavany, Kladno, Panenské Břežany and Lípa, and with the ‘Zossen’ work group in Wulkow. Postcards for these recipients were handed in at the post office in the Armoury [Poststraße] without any further details other than the recipient’s address. They had to be legibly written; the number of words was not limited.
May 1
The first batch parcel consignment from the International Committee of the Red Cross was dispatched from Switzerland, addressed to the Jewish Elder Jakob Edelstein.
May 24
A three-month rota for submitting applications for postcards is announced. From this date onwards, rotas and phases for submitting of postcards are announced more or less regularly: The Daily Order No. 325 states that camp commander Seidl, at the request of the Council of Elders, has allowed every ghetto resident to write one postcard once every three months; everyone will receive a postcard on June 1, 1943, which they may post until August 31. Instruction on the regulations governing correspondence is carried out by the censors in the housing units. The call to submit postcards is published in the daily orders in the specified sequence of transports. Censorship takes place immediately. Postcards that comply with the regulations will be accepted for dispatch; those who have written postcards incorrectly will be visited by the district censor, who will instruct them, and they will be issued with a replacement postcard. If the second postcard fails again to meet the regulations, the right to write will be revoked, and a third postcard will not be issued.
May 26
The Daily Order No. 326 announced the rota schedule for the posting of postcards, with a timetable running from 3 to 9 June. Further rota timetables were included in the daily orders No. 331 of June 9, No. 332 of June 15, No. 334 of June 22. These also stated that postcards would only be accepted on the day according to the transport in the rota. Later acceptance will not take place; however the postcard can be submitted when the rota is again announced (i.e., upon repeated notification).
June 29
Parcel receipts are introduced for all private shipments arriving in the ghetto.
July 10
Admission stamps are introduced for parcels from the protectorate.
August 1
Street names begin to be included in the addresses of Terezín prisoners.
August 11
The Daily Order No. 350 states: The post office has been relocated from Poststraße 1 to Parkstraße 12. Parcels are collected between 7 am and 7 pm, with no lunch break. Upon collection of the parcel, the recipient is given a form to sign, to confirm its receipt. These forms may be completed and posted outside the rota for posting postcards. Letters may be accepted temporarily by the house or group elders upon presentation of an identity card. Furthermore, the first stage of the II rota for posting postcards, from 12 to 19 August, and the first repeat of the I rota are announced.
September 17
The Daily Order No. 361 continues the announcement of the II rota, with the phase taking place from 18 to 24 September.
A fee will now be charged for incoming parcels in the so-called ‘ghetto currency’. The fee will be collected by the parcel post office.
October 2
The Daily Order No. 366 announces the first stage of the III rota, to take place from 1 to 7 October, and the repeat (presumably of the II rota), with the additional text that, from October 1, 1943, every ghetto resident will be handed out one postcard in the III rota.
November 13
The Daily Order No. 377 announces the continuation of the III rota, setting out the schedule for 11 to 20 November and the repeat.
November – December
Notifications for parcels are introduced (documented for the protectorate for this date).
1944
January 13
The Daily Order No. 400 announces a further phase of the IV rota, to take place from 13 to 20 January 1944. It has not been possible to establish when the III rota ended and the IV rota was announced.
February 12
The Daily Order No. 410 announces a not specified rota for the acceptance of postcards and the repeat of this process. From now on, all postal items (letters, postcards, confirmations of parcels received) must also include the room number, in the following order: street name, room number, house number, e.g. Lange Straße 113/5. Parcels are collected daily from 8 am to 12 and from 1.30 pm to 4 pm. The post office is open a quarter of an hour earlier. Parcels are not collected on Saturdays and Sundays.
February 29
It is permitted to add brief messages regarding the recipient’s well-being, as well as a note of thanks, to the parcel delivery receipts.
February
The transport numbers of the prisoners are removed from the post office’s register. The rotas continue to be announced according to the arrival of the transports, however the dispatch of written postcards is organized in alphabetical order.
night of 8 to 9 March
In Auschwitz-Birkenau, the prisoners from Terezín who had been deported there to the socalled ‚family camp‘ in September 1943 were killed. Before their deaths, in the first days of March, they were forced to write postcards bearing the false date of March 25, 1944.
March 29
The Daily Order No. 427 announces that applications for admission stamps for parcels from the protectorate are being accepted from prisoners from the transports which arrived in the ghetto before March 31. There are currently not enough postcards available at the post office; they cannot therefore be issued in a timely manner. Those entitled to a postcard will be able to collect them at regular intervals.
April 25
It is forbidden to write about the contents of the parcel in the message written on the parcel receipt.
May 10
The Newsletter No.11 of the Jewish self-administration (Mitteilungen der jüdischen Selbstverwaltung) announces the III rota for the submission of applications for an admission stamp and a phase of an unspecified rota for the delivery of postcards between 11 and 20 May.
May 30
The Newsletter No. 16 announces a further phase of an unspecified rota for the submission of postcards between 1 and 15 June, and a repeat. It informed that in many cases parcels from Lisbon were delivered without any further information about the addressee. The Jewish self-administration requests that senders, when possible, identify the addressee precisely in future (by date of birth, place of origin, etc.). To simplify and speed up the distribution of the received parcels, lists of addressees for whom additional information is required will be displayed in the buildings, in the offices of the block elders, and in the building at Hauptstraße 2, II. Hof.
June 21
Postal index of prisoners is established.
July 27
Every prisoner in Terezín must issue a postal authorization to the Jewish Elder. The latter legally transfers this to Dr Franz Weidmann, who is granted the right to dispose of all incoming postal items.
July 29
The Newsletter No. 32 announces a rota for the submission of postcards, with the following phases: Week I, 31 July to 5 August, for prisoners whose surnames begin with A, B, C, D, E, F; Week II, 7 to 12 August, for prisoners whose surnames begin with G, H, I, J, K; Week III: 14 to 19 August for prisoners whose surnames begin with S, Sch, St, T, U, V, W, Z. It has also been announced that the fee for parcel collection will be reduced.
The Newsletter No. 39: With immediate effect, communications from the Jewish self-administration will be published on the noticeboards listed above in the same manner as the lists of undeliverable parcels and letters. In view of the restrictions on postal services, the previous regulations are being partially amended; it is therefore announced that, with immediate effect, every resident may write one postcard every eight weeks, clearly and legibly, containing up to thirty words. Below is the rota for the distribution of postcards between 28 August and 23 September, in which all prisoners are called in alphabetical order by their surnames, and the announcement of the alternative date.
(This summary takes into account all the daily orders and newsletters issued by the Jewish self-administration of Terezín to which the author had access at the Terezín Memorial and the Jewish Museum in Prague).
1945
May 3
The International Committee of the Red Cross takes over the protection of Terezín and the Small Fortress. Letters are distributed either through the Committee or the post office in Bohušovice nad Ohří.
May 6
The ghetto’s new self-administration immediately lifts all restrictions, including those on postal services.
May 14
Postal services from the ghetto are subject to quarantine measures.
TOŠNEROVÁ, Patricia. Anhang 1: Die wichtigsten Daten zur Geschichte des Brief- und Paketverkehrs zwischen dem Ghetto Theresienstadt und dem Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren, aus zeitgenössischen Quellen ermittelt. [Key dates in the history of letter and parcel exchanges between the Theresienstadt ghetto and the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, derived from contemporary sources.] In: KÁRNÝ, Miroslav; MILOTOVÁ, Jaroslava; LORENCOVÁ, Eva (Hrsg.). Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 2001. Prag: Academia in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Institut der Theresienstädter Initiative, 2001, S. 136–143.
[translation from German into English: Wedding Film]
about the Terezín project:
It all began with our dealing with Theresienstadt / Terezín, particularly with regard to the period of Nazi occupation; between 1941 and 1945, the entire town was then turned into a concentration camp for Jews. To address this phenomenon Theresienstadt, we made all the front doors in this city the focus of our work. To this end, we photographed them in their entirety, building a meticulous archive (as no such archive previously existed). From the outside, without people, without cars, doors closed.
Artistic hypothesis: these images of doors are capable of giving form (Gestalt) to the irretrievable painful absence.
This photographic archive material shall be presented in two ways:
as a series of projections
and
as a postcard installation.
In both cases, all doors appear with no exceptions or selection, following the hegelian truism: that the whole is the truth.
The closer we get to (what was then) Theresienstadt, the more we feel particularly affected and outraged as performing and visual artists – specially on account of the performative deception there as a principle for the society – and particularly in demand!
Stanislav Lada, Terezín Memorial: more
Terezín, a fortified town founded at the end of the 18th century by Emperor Joseph II, was established as part of the defensive system of the Habsburg Monarchy. Its regular Baroque structure, formed by a network of streets, barracks, and fortifications, was originally intended for military purposes. Over time, however, the town’s military significance declined, and Terezín gradually transformed into a civilian settlement whose everyday life was long shaped by the rhythm of a small provincial town.
A fundamental turning point came with the period of the Second World War. In 1941, the Nazis turned Terezín into a ghetto and transit camp intended primarily for the Jewish population from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, as well as from Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, and other European countries. Terezín fulfilled several functions at once—it was a place of forced concentration, a labor camp, and also an instrument of Nazi propaganda, presented as a “model ghetto.” Above all, however, it functioned as a transit station on the way to extermination camps in the East.
It was precisely this transit character that determined the fate of most prisoners. Approximately 155,000 Jews were deported to Terezín. Around 35,000 people died here as a result of hunger, disease, and exhaustion. About 87,000 prisoners were deported further east, especially to extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Sobibor; only about 3,600 of them returned home after the war. Approximately 17,000 people survived in Terezín until the end of the war. These figures testify to Terezín as a place that was more a waystation than a destination—a temporary place of confinement whose boundaries became, for most, merely a stop on the path to death.
Within this space, doors and gates take on a crucial significance. They are not merely architectural elements, but symbols of the boundary between worlds. They separate the external reality of freedom from the internal space of restriction, control, and uncertainty. Every door in Terezín meant more than just an entrance or an exit—it was a place of decision, hope, and fear. Through them passed transports of new arrivals; through them departed transports heading east. Closed doors could protect as well as isolate; open doors could mean a fleeting return to humanity—or, conversely, the beginning of a journey from which there was no return.
After the liberation in 1945, Terezín became a place of returns and losses. For a short time, it served as an internment camp for Germans, and the town gradually returned to being an ordinary settlement, while still bearing the weight of its past. Today, Terezín is above all a place of memory, reminding us of the tragedy of the Holocaust and warning against the consequences of hatred and indifference.
The photographs of Terezín’s doors and gates are therefore not merely a record of architecture. They are silent witnesses to history. Every detail carries the imprint of the lives of those who passed through them—sometimes willingly, more often against their will. Here, doors are not only a boundary of space, but also a boundary between past and present, between forgetting and remembrance.
a production by Wedding Film in cooperation with the Terezín Memorial
supported by the Deutsch-Tschechischer Zukunftsfonds and the European Union’s Culture Moves Europe programme – Goethe Institut
