Steidl, 2010. First edition. Clothbound hardcover with dust jacket, 192 pp., color illustrated, 207 x 259 mm. Photographs by Daniel Blaufuks.
Theresienstadt or Terezin in the Czech Republic is a fortified town sixty kilometres to the north of Prague. At the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, the Germans chose Theresienstadt as a "Model Ghetto" for Jews over 65 years old, Jewish veterans from the First World War, and known personalities. The Nazis declared the camp a "ghetto under Jewish authority", appointing a council of elders with a chairman, but under the authority of the SS. In reality the camp was just another staging post on the way to Auschwitz or Birkenau. Due to the presence of numerous interned professors, artists and writers, there were school and cultural activities, such as lectures and concerts. During the life of the ghetto, over two thousand four hundred lectures took place on such varied topics as the Jews of Babylon, the theory of relativity, Alexander the Great and German humour.
Daniel Blaufuks, born in Lisbon in 1963, is a descendant of Polish and German Jews. He lived in West Germany from 1976 to 1983. Blaufuks received the Kodak Prize in 1989 and the European Photography Award in 1996. Since collaborating with the writer Paul Bowles, he has been interested in the relationship between literature and photography. In 2007 he received the Best Photography Book of the Year Award for Under Strange Skies and the BES Photo Award for his project Terezín.
