NARRATOR Theresienstadt, like all the ghettos, really served as a transit station—a holding area for Jews before they were deported to one of the killing centers. The conditions were appalling by design and on purpose: the goal was to reduce deportation of the Jewish population through starvation and disease. Ben Waserman recalls: “I remember we were there for three years… and I remember being very ill, uh, I remember having a lot of sores. And I always felt ill, always felt hungry.” NARRATOR Jewish artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis organized clandestine art classes for the children in Theresienstadt. Before she was deported to Auschwitz, Dicker-Brandeis hid away two suitcases containing more than 4,000 of the children’s drawings and artwork. Discovered after the war, the artwork serves as bittersweet commemoration for thousands of lost children and a unique lens into their suffering and hope. Despite its horrible conditions, Theresienstadt was held up by the Nazis as a “model Jewish settlement” in an audacious moment of propaganda, created in response to the spreading rumors of Nazi death camps in 1944. In a show of bravado, the Nazis invited the International Red Cross to visit Theresienstadt, hoping to put the rumors to rest. Prior to the Red Cross visit, the Nazis arranged a mass deportation to Auschwitz to reduce camp overcrowding; gardens were planted; fake stores, playgrounds, soccer fields and schools were created; and prisoners were rehearsed for interviews. The façade was so beautiful that the camp’s Nazi leadership made a film titled “The Fuhrer Gives a Village to the Jews,” celebrating what they call the “new life of the Jews under the auspices of the Third Reich.” After the filming was completed, the actors as well as most of the camp’s children were sent to the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.