Café Terezín

Café Terezín is a concert performed on stage about the Jewish sisters Steffi and Nelli who were sent to Sweden to escape the Nazis’ invasion of their home city of Vienna. They are taken in by foster families on an island in the Gothenburg archipelago. With their presentation Café Terezin, Gestaltensemblen shows what xenophobia and intolerance can lead to and what it is like to be an unaccompanied refugee child.

Theresienstadt, or Terezin as it is called in Czech, was located just a few kilometers outside of Prague in today’s Czech Republic and was used as a concentration camp by the Nazis during World War II. Many of the prisoners were artists, composers and authors. While awaiting deportation to concentration camps like Auschwitz, they dedicated their time to creating, and gave jazz concerts, theatrical performances and lectures every day. Terezin was used as propaganda by the Nazis and shown to the surrounding world as a “model” camp. 

Alfred Kantor arrived at Terezin in 1941 at the age of 18 and was transferred to Auschwitz in 1943. In the last moment, he escaped the gas chambers and through his testimony, we can understand life in the camp. Steffi and Nelli are characters from Annika Thor’s acclaimed books. The music in the presentation was written by composers who were held captive in Theresienstadt.

In partnership with the Living History Forum