ASSteroids:presentation of the digital archive of artifacts founded at the location Terezín
A.S.S. Andere Seite Studio
1. - 31. August 2009
vernisage friday 31 July at 7 pm
opening speech: Miloš Vojtěchovský
music: Do Shaska!
First public presentation of the digital archive, containing 864 items - so called teroides, is focused on the phenomena of the town and the Theresienstadt fortress, perceived from an unexpected "neo-archeological" perspective. The artist association A.S.S. is presenting their personal view on the landscape of Theresienstadt, belonging towards the most tragic in the history in European scale. Radek and Zdeněk Kvetoň took the position of the methodology of "positivist" scientist, or gatherer and excavated, assembled and cathegorised several honderd of lost or trashed objects, scattered in the grounds across the fortress of Theresienstadt. The idea of the "teroids", or "assteroids" resulted from long term intensive photograpic research, gradually overlapping the original concepts of "photography" or "Terezienstadt". Collecting and a digitalizing of teroids started in 2002 and was carried out till 2007. It was triggered by the catastrophical flood in August 2002, when the entire land around the town was flooded. The collection refers to the predeluvial times of the settlement of the Theresienstadt determined by militarism and atrocity.
The fortress of Terezín was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 by the orders of the Austrian emperor Joseph II in the north-west region of Bohemia. It was designed to be a component of a projected but never fully realized fortification system of the monarchy, another piece being the fort of Josefov. Terezín took its name from the mother of the emperor, Maria Theresa. By the end of the 18th century, the facility was obsolete as a fort; in the 19th century, the fort was used to accommodate military and political prisoners.
From 1914 till 1918 it housed one of its most famous prisoners: Gavrilo Princip. Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife on June 28, 1914, which led to the First World War. Princip died in cell number 1 from tuberculosis on April 28, 1918.
On June 10, 1940, the Gestapo took control of Terezín and set up prison in the Small Fortress (kleine Festung), see below. By November 24, 1941, the Main Fortress (große Festung, i.e. the town Theresienstadt) was turned into a walled ghetto.[1] To the outside it was presented by the Nazis as a model Jewish settlement, but in reality it was a concentration camp. Theresienstadt was also used as a transit camp for European Jews en route to Auschwitz.
Approximately 144,000 Jews were sent to Theresienstadt. Most inmates were Czech Jews. Some 40,000 originated from Germany, 15,000 from Austria, 5,000 from the Netherlands and 300 from Luxembourg. In addition to the group of approx. 500 Jews from Denmark, also Slovak and Hungarian Jews were deported to the ghetto. Some 1,600 Jewish children from Białystok, Poland, were deported to Auschwitz from Theresienstadt; none survived. About a quarter of the inmates (33,000) died in Theresienstadt, mostly because of the deadly conditions (hunger, stress, and disease, especially the typhus epidemic at the very end of war). About 88,000 were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. At the end of the war, there were a mere 17,247 survivors. 15,000 children lived in the camp’s children’s home; only 93 survived.
