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Theresienstadt is a very interesting concentration camp in many aspects. Inmates were treated more favorably for various reasons. Some of Europe's most gifted and famous artists, writers or leaders of the Jewish Community were sent there. Conditions in Theresienstadt were among the best in all of the concentration and death camps (Feldmann 270). In addition to that the descendants of Madeleine Albright who was the Secretary of State under the Clinton administration were incarcerated there (Schulz). Nevertheless, this unique concentration camp is still most famous and known for the Red Cross visit.
Theresienstadt's background appears silent and dull. Named after the empress Maria Theresa, emperor Joseph II of Austria, her son, built it in 1780. Except for the incarceration of the assassins of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in 1914, which had been the immediate cause of World War I, nothing worth mentioning ever happened to this little Garrison town ("Terezin -). This changed dramatically when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia and decided to convert it into a concentration camp. Theresienstadt became the backdrop for a carefully constructed propaganda campaign, which the Nazis used to successfully deceive the Red Cross and the world.
Theresienstadt was being embellished in acknowledgement of the 1929 Geneva Convention and increasing outside pressure. All nations that had signed the Geneva Convention in 1929 were required to let the Red Cross inspect any potential concentration camps since it was not unusual for countries to set up camps in times of war. The promise to let the Red Cross inspect a camp (and to allow the Red Cross to send packages containing food and medicine) was one of the few that the Nazis surprisingly kept. .
There were two aspects of increasing outside pressure.
