WHAT IS VEDEM?
Vedem is an underground handmade magazine – or zine – that was published by teenage boy prisoners of the Terezin Ghetto from 1942 to 1944, making it the longest-running underground magazine in a Nazi camp. Vedem means “In the Lead” in Czech.
WHY WAS VEDEM CREATED?
“We no longer want to be an accidental group of boys passively succumbing to the fate meted out to us.
We want to create an active, mature society and through work and discipline transform our fate in a joyful, proud reality.
They have unjustly uprooted us from the soil that nurtured us, from the work, the joys, and the culture from which our young lives should have drawn strength.
They have one aim in mind: to destroy us, not only physically but morally and mentally as well.
Will they succeed?
Never!"
-Vedem Manifesto
WHO WROTE FOR VEDEM?
Any documentation of the truth behind the walls of the Terezin “Model Ghetto” was punishable by death. As a result, Vedem’s writers and illustrators who violated the Germans’ orders by contributing to the underground magazine resorted to nicknames to conceal their identities. Some were humorous – Sidney Taussig was nicknamed “Trixie” for a girl he met at a Terezin sports event. Others were in admiration – George Brady was called “Cold- Blooded Horse” for his willingness to jump between rooftops as a plumber’s apprentice. “Academy” eventually became a catch-all nickname for Vedem’s most prolific writers. Of the 92 boys who pass through Room #1, just 15 survived the Holocaust.
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Petr “-nz” Ginz
(b.1928, d. 1944 in Auschwitz): Vedem’s founder and editor-in-chief was an artistic prodigy who’d authored a handful of novels as a pre-teen. Because he was half-Jewish, Petr was deported from his hometown of Prague to Terezin by himself in 1942, though his sister and Jewish father followed in 1944 and 1945, respectively. Petr constantly edited and wrote from his bunk while hiding unfinished issues in a small shelf behind his bunk between issues.
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Kurt “Saint” Kotouc
(b. 1928, survived the Holocaust): Vedem’s managing editor and cultural correspondent performed many of Vedem’s production and operational duties, including enforcing deadlines and rewriting copy from contributors’ barely-legible paper scraps. A native of Brno, Czechoslovakia, Kurt, whose mother and brother were Terezin prisoners, was also Vedem’s cultural correspondent, reporting on the theater productions, scholar lectures and concerts the Germans permit in order to help conceal Terezin’s harsh realities from the outside world.
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Sidney “Trixie” Taussig
(b. 1929, survived the Holocaust): Vedem contributor’s initial role within Vedem was as its sportswriter, reporting on cellblock team matches that the older Jewish counselors arrange to distract the boys from ghetto life. He later took on darker subject matter, using his job transporting dead bodies to write a chilling article about Terezin’s crematorium. Raised in Prague, Sidney also had the foresight to bury Vedem’s issues in a metal box underground, later digging them up and preserving them.
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Hanus “Hacha” Hachenburg
(b. 1929, d. 1944 in Auschwitz): Vedem’s poet laureate was younger than his fellow editors, though he distilled Prague’s rich pre-war literary scene into a flood of prose reflecting a boy wise far beyond his years. Slight, introverted and orphaned before his imprisonment, Hanus unleashed his observations without regard to rhyme or grammar and prolifically contributed the unfiltered poetry that gave Vedem much of its thematic weight.
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Zdenek “Mustafa” Ohrenstein
(b.1929, survived the Holocaust): Vedem poet was the younger brother of a renowned Czech poet, and served as Vedem’s resident romantic by writing poems about love. He also appeared as an actor in Terezin’s “Brundibar” children’s opera, which was performed more than 50 times as part of the Germans’ plan to project Terezin as a “Show Camp” for propaganda purposes.
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Jiří “Abscess” Bruml
(b. 1929, d. 1944 in Auschwitz): Vedem contributor who grew up in Prague was noted for his intelligence. His articles included stark observations of everyday challenges such as his experience suffering from polio.
OTHER VEDEM CONTRIBUTORS:
WHERE WAS VEDEM PUBLISHED?
“The Madman”
“I walk the streets alone and alone, pondering the evil in the world.
And thoughts about it fill my mind, as I walk the dark streets, alone and alone.
I remember. Long, long ago, a madman wished to change the world, turn it upside down and inside out,
Fill people and youth with one idea: take nothing on trust, let nothing stand, fight for every inch of land.
If something is down, then lift it up, if others stay silent, you must speak up.
And so this madman years ago tried tuning the world upside down,
And walked his cat instead of his dog.”
- “Ca -nz” (Peter Ginz)
Vedem was produced in Room #1 of Terezin’s building L417, which was converted from an old school. Room #1’s counsellor was Walter Eisinger, a Communist who covertly defied the Germans’ orders by preaching free thought while secretly educating the boys in the building’s attic. With Eisinger’s encouragement, the boys formed a secret society called the Republic of Shkid, named after Eisinger’s favorite book about a Russian correctional school for homeless boys. The secret society elected a president and jury, wrote an anthem and manifesto, created an official shield, and launched Vedem as an expression of artistic activism, solidarity and faith in humanity.
“Questions and Answers
What good to mankind is the beauty of science?
What good is the beauty of pretty girls?
What good is a world when there are no rights?
What good is the sun when there is no day?
What good is god? Is he only to punish?
Or to make life better for mankind?
Or are we beasts vainly to suffer
And rot beneath the yoke of our feelings?
What good is life when the living suffer?
Why is my world surrounded by walls?
Know son, this is here for a reason:
To make you fight and conquer all!”
- “Ha-” (Hanus Hachenburg)
“You probably think you know Terezin well. I want to prove you wrong.”— Petr Ginz
Using Terezin for propaganda purposes, the Germans forced imprisoned artists to work for a graphics department that prepared illustrations for reports to be presented to Nazi leaders. Ironically, Vedem’s contributors used these conditions to their advantage by making friends with those artists and smuggling paper and other supplies from the department. Some artwork was created from the watercolor paints editor Petr Ginz brought to the camp, while graphics and the Republic of Shkid shield that would appear in many of Vedem’s issues are fine-tuned with a ruler contributor Sidney Taussig brought from home. Living in what was previously a classroom, the boys also found a typewriter in the old school’s office and used it until the ribbon ran out after 30 issues. Petr Ginz used supplies sent by his non-Jewish mother in Prague to write and draw Vedem’s remaining 53 issues by hand. With Petr Ginz urging Vedem’s contributors to write about what they thought, saw and did, the boys wrote at a center wooden table or on their bunks while bunkmates kept a lookout and give a secret signal if German guards were nearby.
WHAT DID VEDEM’S CREATORS WRITE ABOUT?
The content in Vedem’s earlier issues often reflected the contributors’ adolescence. There were cartoons, humor pieces, inside jokes, literary reviews and other reflections of a life inside of Room #1 where the boys bonded over their common fate.
“Hanus tells great stories of his childhood. He once claimed he saw a car drive past him, hurdle down a stairway to the river embankment, plow through the water to the other side, then drive up a steep hill into the Letna District. The car then spread its wings and flew off towards Dejvice. He’s a great storyteller. Now he chases girls.”
– Petr Ginz
As time wore on, though, Vedem took on more serious matter. Petr Ginz and Hanus Hachenburg wrote poems about homesickness and the loss of their childhood to prison. Sidney Taussig wrote a blunt recollection about his job transporting dead bodies to Terezin’s crematorium. Others touched upon the hoax behind the Terezin Ghetto and the realization of the measures the Nazis were willing to go through in order to hide their plans from the rest of the world.
“The beautification patrol scurry through the streets, the work crew paint fences a pleasingly dark shade of reddish-brown, decorators add news displays to the windows, youth leaders chase their charges throughout the homes, and little old ladies search frantically for somebody to argue with, or to spread rumors to.”
Meanwhile, columns such as “Rambles Through Terezin,” “One of Us” and “Praise & Blame” offered an unflinching view of Terezin through the boys’ eyes and reflect dynamics that range from wishful escapism to satire, anger and defiance.
“Thanks to Terezin, we may be more mature. But we are children, children just the same.”
