ritis claimed over 4000 lives. Other common epidemics such as conjunctivitis, hepatitis, and typhus were also spread by the conditions in the ghetto. One of the main spreaders of disease and epidemics was lice because of the close living conditions. Even though the S. S kept the delousing station running non stop, the second a person returned to their bunks the lice would be back within a day or two. Besides the lice, there were thousands of bugs infesting Theresienstadt. One woman remembers killing 120 bugs on her wall in one night, just to find another 50 the next day. Physicians removing plaster casts often found swarms of bugs living underneath infesting the persons arm. Keeping clean in Theresienstadt was close to impossible. A resident would be considered lucky if they could shower once every two months. The water was restricted to be on only three times a day for one hour. During this time thousands of people would have to do their laundry and bath. Laundry was done once every three months at most, and the clothes would be dirty within a day of washing. One toilet in Theresienstadt would serve anywhere from a hundred people to 500. With that kind of traffic toilets were never kept clean and always backed up and overflowing. During 1943, alone 30% of the population were ill due to conditions, which did not include the starving. The other 70% were busy taking care of the sick, starving or working. During July the death rate was 32 people a day and by August it rose to 75 people a day, then even higher still in September to 131 people a day dying in Theresienstadt. It was more then 25, 000 thousand deaths a year, which is 25 times the death rate in any normal central European city. Most of those were due to starvation, lack of medicine, disease, and torture. Like most ghettos, there was an obsession with food in Theresienstadt. Meals consisted of old bread, some potato’s turnips, watery soup, and possibly meat...
