Aufbaukommando (construction detail) – Ak Transports Ak I and Ak II

The Aufbaukommando was a group of young Jewish men on construction detail. Its task was to adapt the empty military buildings in the garrison town of Terezín for the mass accommodation of Jewish deportees. The arrival of 342 men on the first Aufbaukommando (Ak I) on 24 November 1941 marked the beginning of the Terezín ghetto. The second Aufbaukommando (Ak II) arrived on Transport St on 4 December 1941. This group included the men that were to form the leadership of the newly established ghetto. The conditions upon arrival were very poor: large bare rooms in barracks, concrete floors without mattresses for sleeping, initially no provision of food, mail ban, no leaving the barracks without permission and only when accompanied by gendarmes. The qualified work performed by the members of the Aufbaukommando gave them a privileged position in the ghetto, which they retained until 1943. They and their immediate family members were protected from deportation to the East. In time, some members of the Aufbaukommando also gained a prominent position within the hierarchy of the Jewish administration. This protection no longer applied from September 1943 onwards. Of the 1,342 members of the two Aufbaukommando units, 1,216 were deported to the east. Only 388 of these prisoners survived Terezín and other concentration camps.