for helping or contacting Jews; two died as a result of their imprisonment. The first gendarme commander, Theodor Janeček, was a "rabid antisemite" whose behavior "sometimes surpass[ed] the SS in cruelty", according to Israeli historian Livia Rothkirchen. Janeček was replaced by Miroslaus Hasenkopf on 1 September 1943. The Ghetto Guard, a police force made up of Jewish prisoners, was formed on 6 December 1941 and reported to the Jewish self-administration. It was reconstituted several times and comprised 420 men at its peak in February 1943. Jewish self-administration The Jewish self-administration or self-government () nominally governed the ghetto. The self-administration included the Jewish elder (), a deputy, and the Council of Elders () and a Central Secretariat beneath which various departments administered life in the ghetto. The first of the Jewish elders of Theresienstadt was Jakob Edelstein, a Zionist leader. Edelstein and his deputy, Otto Zucker, initially planned to convert Theresienstadt into a productive economic center and thereby avoid deportations; they were unaware that the Nazis already planned to deport all the Jews and convert Theresienstadt into a German settlement. Theresienstadt was the only Jewish community in Nazi-occupied Europe that was led by Zionists. The self-administration was characterized by excessive bureaucracy. In his landmark study Theresienstadt 1941–45, H. G. Adler's list of all of the departments and sub-departments was 22 pages long. In 1943, when representatives of the Austrian and German Jewish community arrived at the ghetto, the administration was reorganized to include Austrian and German Jews. Paul Eppstein, from Berlin, was appointed as the liaison with the SS command, while Edelstein was obliged to act as his deputy. The SS used the national divisions to sow intrigue and disunity. Corruption The economy of Theresienstadt was highly corrupt. Besides the "prominent" prisoners, young Czech Jewish men had the highest status in the ghetto. As the first prisoners in the ghetto (whether in the Aufbaukommando or through connections to the Aufbaukommando) most of the privileged positions in the ghetto fell to this group. Those in charge of distributing food typically skimmed off the deliveries to save more for themselves or their friends, which heightened the starvation for elderly Jews in particular. The SS also stole deliveries of food intended for prisoners. Many of the functionaries in the Transport Department enriched themselves by accepting bribes. Powerful individuals attempted, and often succeeded, to exempt their friends from deportation, a fact that was noted by