Trained at the Weimar Academy of Fine Arts, Fritz Lederer designed sets for theater productions in Theresienstadt. This engraving is part of a portfolio of prints he created after the war, depicting oppressive scenes of the camp, including the infamous Small Fortress, the prison where many inmates were tortured and killed.
The term eruv refers to the symbolic boundary established in some Jewish communities, demarcating a space considered the shared private property of all members, within which certain practices normally forbidden on the Sabbath may be performed. Lederer’s use of the term in the context of Theresienstadt is laced with irony. The only way out of this eruv was by death or deportation to an extermination camp.