The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt

"This is a powerful contribution to our understanding of the ghetto and of how societies are constructed in general, revealing in complex detail the lived experiences of those who inhabited Theresienstadt." -- Barnabas Balint, The Journal of the Social History Society

"In this overwhelming book, Anna Hájková has assembled - in extraordinary gutwrenching detail - these stories of Terez ... It is the loss of life in all its mucky beauty, and the loss of living-breathing-evolving community on such a mass scale, after all, that contributes to the breathtaking horror of genocide." -- JORDANA SILVERSTEIN, University of Melbourne, Gender & History

"This is a powerful contribution to our understanding of the ghetto and of how societies are constructed in general, revealing in complex detail the lived experiences of those who inhabited Theresienstadt." -- Barnabas Balint, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, Journal of the Social History Society

"Hájková has not simply written a book depicting the "transnational, cultural, social, gender, and organizational history" of the "well known, poorly understood ghetto", but she shows with great sensitivity, concisely and immense knowledge the everyday history of this limbo, the "last ghetto." -- Thomas Krzenck, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft

"Anna Hájková's The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt is an essential addition to the literature about the camp, rivaled in scholarly insight only by H.G Adler... And since it is unlikely that many American readers will have the stamina to persevere through the more than 800 pages that examine the features of Adler's "coerced community," readers should feel no hesitation in turning to Hájková's thoughtful and thorough analysis." -- Lawrence Langer, University of Wisconsin-Madison, George L. Mosse Program in History

"Hájková's book The Last Ghetto is a well-researched, captivatingly written, and engaging scholarly work about the life of prisoners in Theresienstadt. Hájková's book is crucial reading and paradigm-shifting work for anyone who wants to understand a prisoners' society in extremis" -- Denisa Nesťáková, Herder Institute in Marburg, Marburg, GermanyComenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia, East Central Europe

"This excellent study provides a critical investigation of the social, political, and even sexual relationships in the ghetto, their complex nature in a coerced setting and the developing power structures dominated by the young Czech elite." -- Wolf Gruner, University of Southern California, AJS Review

"Hájková brings solid research and a much-appreciated enrichment to readers' understanding of the Theresienstadt ghetto. The author worked for a decade with public and private archives in nine languages and offers readers a deeper understanding of what she calls "a forced community." -- J. Kleiman, CHOICE

"Hajkova's history of Terezin is a tour de force. Thanks to Hajkova's astonishing research and courageous reappraisal of victim society, aspects of this history that have been overlooked or marginalized are now before our eyes. A major contribution to the history of the Holocaust, The Last Ghetto also opens up new perspectives on class, nationalism, ethnicity, gender and sexuality in twentieth-century Europe. A deeply, wrenchingly human story that everyone ought to read." -- Alexandra Garbarini, author of Numbered Days: Diaries and the Holocaust

"This splendid and devastating, gorgeously written, paradigm-shifting book offers one transformative revelation after another. Exemplifying radical empathy without sentimentality, it represents the very best the new Holocaust history has to offer." -- Dagmar Herzog, Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe

"Theresienstadt has been shrouded in myths since Nazis first presented it as a 'model ghetto' to trick the world that Jewish prisoners were being treated humanely. Hájková's The Last Ghetto reveals the interior life of the ghetto and persuasively demonstrates that like the society that produced it, this society in extremis was riven by ethnic, gender, political, linguistic, and economic divisions that prevented a common sense of Jewishness from forming among the prisoners." -- Barry Trachtenberg, Michael H. and Deborah K. Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History, Wake Forest University

"The Last Ghetto is the most important book on Theresienstadt to appear in many years. With unparalleled knowledge of the sources and deep sensitivity, Anna Hájková has made a major contribution to the history of the Holocaust. With her focus on the everyday life of the ghetto's inhabitants, she also provides us with a model of social, cultural, and gender history." -- Dan Stone, Professor of Modern History, Royal Holloway, University of London

"This book provides the most thoroughly researched and conceptualised cultural and social history of everyday life in TerezÃ-n. As such, it should be essential reading for anyone interested in Theresienstadt and social relations in extremis. In addition, it provides so many interesting details amidst the larger historical points that readers will find it both fascinating and thought provoking." -- Amy Simon, Michigan State University, USA, Journal of Contemporary History

"An excellently written book that will help shape future historiography on the ghettos under Nazi rule for years to come." -- Marc Buggeln, University of Flensburg, Modern European History