„The Second Life“ of the Theresienstadt Films after the World War II

Film materials shot in the ghetto of Theresienstadt between 1942 and 1945 were considered lost for a long time. Results of historical research of the last decades (cf. the work of the historian Karel Margry) and other recently appeared facts enable us to reconstruct how the individual  film fragments made their way into different  international archives after the year of 1945. One should point out that there are still lost materials and contexts that haven’t been yet clarified, – among others the question of hiding the film clippings of 1942 by Irena Dodalová. Recently found documents in the Archive of Security Services in Prague became a new source of  information about filming in the ghetto and the production of the controversial propaganda film Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet (1944-45). They are connected with a trial in the mid 1960’s in Prague which was dealing with the illegal transfer of this film to West Germany, or rather its fragment. The topic of the post-war history of the film materials from the Theresienstadt ghetto which became an important source for historical study and also for publications on the Holocaust for the public, still presents a challenge for current research.