Succumbing to pressure following the deportation of Danish Jews to Theresienstadt, the Germans permitted representatives from the Danish Red Cross and the International Red Cross to visit in June 1944. It was all an elaborate hoax. The Germans intensified deportations from the ghetto shortly before the visit, and the ghetto itself was "beautified." Gardens were planted, houses painted, and barracks renovated. The Nazis staged social and cultural events for the visiting dignitaries. Once the visit was over, the Germans resumed deportations from Theresienstadt, which did not end until October 1944.
Danish leaders—from King Christian on down—were insistent that the Danish Red Cross visit the Danish deportees to gather firsthand information on their treatment in Theresienstadt. German diplomats felt that German standing in Denmark and Sweden would deteriorate, to a point harmful to German interested. The Wehrmacht (German armed forces) wanted peace and quiet in Denmark, and the Germans hoped, in Sweden, to continue to import ball bearings needed for the war effort. Under considerable pressure, the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) agreed to consider the matter and, at the end of 1943, ordered the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto authorities to "prepare" the facility. After considerable stalling, the RSHA finally authorized a visit for representatives of the International Red Cross and the Danish Red Cross for June 1944 and ordered the SS staff in Theresienstadt to complete the preparations.
On June 23, 1944, as planned, two delegates from the International Red Cross and one from the Danish Red Cross visited the ghetto, accompanied by Theresienstadt commandant SS First Lieutenant Karl Rahm and one of his deputies. The facility had been "cleaned up" and rearranged as a model village. Hints that all was not well included a bruise under the eye of the "mayor" of the "town," a part played by Paul Eppstein, the Elders' Council member representing German Jews. Despite these hints, the International Red Cross inspectors were taken in. This was in part because they expected to see ghetto conditions like those in occupied Poland with people starving in the streets and armed policemen on the perimeter.
