Terezin Ghetto Research Paper

Eva Ginzova, born February 21st of 1930 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, kept a diary from June 24th, 1944 till May 14th, 1945 while she resided in the Terezin Ghetto. Despite the horrible, atrocious conditions of the ghetto, Eva was considered lucky because she was there for less than year and she was a child. Jewish children in the ghetto received protection from the elders who tried to shelter them from the ghetto and war as well as provide secret schooling. Eva was born to a mother who was raised Catholic but late declared herself atheist and a Jewish father and raised in a liberal, but traditional household ( ). Growing up, she kept kosher, attended synagogue on major holidays, celebrated mitzvahs and Christmases, and went to a progressive Jewish school. When laws similar to the Nuremberg Laws passed in June after Germany annexed Czechoslovakia in March of 1939, Eva was defined as a Mischlinge …show more content…
Six weeks after her arrival, Eva starts her diary hopeful because “people said two months at most,” and she was excited to see her brother again while also describing the horrible conditions they had. The children’s barracks she had stayed in were overcrowded, cold, filthy, dark, and infested. The Terezin ghetto was known for the constant flow of new arrivals which caused people to be moved often from barrack to barrack. This instability along with the exposure to unsanitary conditions and hunger spread illnesses around, leading to Eva to become sick with Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria in the August of 1944. As her time in the ghetto dragged on and as she saw death and hopelessness among others, Eva began to lose hope herself: “I thought I would definitely be back home within two months, but I’m now starting to lose hope because Uncle Milos keeps saying that we will definitely still be here through the winter. I probably won’t be able to last that