When reports about the genocidal campaign against the Jews began to filter in, the Germans decided to invite representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the Theresienstadt Ghetto-camp. The delegation reached Theresienstadt on July 23, 1944. To prepare for the visit, the German commanders of the camp orchestrated every detail, opening fake shops, a café, a bank, kindergartens, and schools, to name but a few. They blanketed the town with flower gardens. They hand-picked the inmates with whom the committee members would meet and told them what to say. Immediately after the visit, the Germans made a propaganda film about the inmates’ new lives under the patronage of the Third Reich. After the filming, the majority of the actors, most members of the ghetto leadership, and almost all the children in the ghetto were sent to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
