Terezin

Two weekends ago, yes I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written, we took a day trip to Terezin. Jeni, Arielle and I decided to take a trip there as it’s only about 45mins away from Prague. Terezin is a town of currently about 3,000 people and I have to say a super dead one at that. There is a huge fortress surrounding the whole town that was built in 1780 by Emperor Joseph II, and it could accommodate up to 11,000 soldiers so that just tells you how big it was. I guess the fortress was never used during a war but ended up being a prison and as a side note for those history buffs out there (Jim) Gavrilo Princip, the man who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 to start WWI died in the prison there. That wasn’t the reason we decided to go there. The main reason was because the town became a transit camp for Jews during WWII. In 1940 the Gestapo created a prison in the lesser fortress and then later the whole town was evicted to create a transit camp for Jews. It said that more than 140,000 Jews passed through there with 33,000 dying in the camp because of the terrible conditions and then 88,000 were sent to Auschwitz. What’s really crazy is that now the town is about three thousand people and at the height of the camp they had 58,419 people living there. Pretty awful to say the least. The Nazi’s also used the place to cover up what they were really doing as when the Red Cross came to visit they displayed it as a Jewish refuge when in fact it wasn’t. They even made a movie to show the Red Cross how great the living conditions were.

So we started off the day by going to the Museum of the Ghetto which was really good. We were able to watch that original movie that the Nazi’s had made for the Red Cross as I had mentioned previously. I took us about two hours to go through the museum and even at that we did not read every single detail. From there we headed over to the Magdeburg barracks where they had a reconstructed prisoners’ dormitory which was really cool to see and of course makes you appreciate the space that you have. We walked around the town somewhat as the town is pretty much one big historical sight as all of the buildings were used during the time of the camp. The town has a really eerie feel to it when you’re walking the streets, as some of the buildings were really run down and we hardly saw any people out on the streets, kind of strange for a Saturday. So we explored some of the streets on our way to the crematorium and also the walls of the fortress. You could walk up on top of the walls which were really neat as you got a better view of the town and the moat that ran along it. We also went to a memorial along the side of the Labe River. I guess they had thrown the ashes of 22,000 people into the river during the time the camp was running. That really hit home for me as the river and area around it was so beautiful so to imagine the Nazi’s throwing the ashes into the river was really disturbing as of course was everything they did during that time. Finally we did a quick tour of the lesser fortress as we were running out of time. They had the prison barracks here along with some workshops and out in front they have a National Cemetery for those who were buried in mass graves. All in all a great day that was very informative and I suggest to others who are going to Prague to make a quick day trip out there as it’s worth it!


The Magdeburg Barracks


The eerie streets of Terezin


The town square


Standing on top of the fortress or the wall that runs around the city, looking down into the moat


Overlooking other areas of the fortress


Crematorium Memorial


Arielle standing along the Labe River where they dumped the ashes


The Memorial




In the Lesser Fortress going into the Jewish Prisoner's quarters with the typical German sign saying "work will set you free"


Courtyard in the prison


On the left are doors to the prisoner's cells where they held some of the "bad" Jews


Outside the Lesser Fortress, another memorial