Terezín

Your guide will show you the area of the concentration camp, and you will hear authentic recollections of former inmates. Visits to this place serve as a warning to prevent the return of similar horrors in the future. 

By 1940 Nazi Germany had assigned the Gestapo to turn Terezín into a Jewish ghetto and concentration camp. It held primarily Jews from Czechoslovakia, as well as tens of thousands of Jews deported chiefly from Germany and Austria, as well as hundreds from the Netherlands and Denmark. More than 150,000 Jews were sent there, including 15,000 children, and held there for months or years, before being sent by rail transports to their deaths at Treblinka and Auschwitz extermination camps in occupied Poland, as well as to smaller camps elsewhere. Less than 150 children survived.

Although Terezin was not an extermination camp, about 33,000 died in the ghetto. This was mostly due to the appalling conditions arising out of extreme population density, malnutrition and disease. About 88,000 inhabitants were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. At the end of World War II, there were 17,247 survivors of Terezin (including some who had survived the death camps). 

The Small Fortress and the Big Fortress during World War II

The Prague Gestapo police prison was set up in the Small Fortress in 1940. Over the two year period the camp (Big Fortress) was re-built to hold a massive capacity of over 150 000 prisoners, mainly Jews from Czechoslovakia as well as Germany and Austria.

Although not primarily death camp, thousands of people died there because of the poor hygienic conditions and thousands of Jews were sent to Auschwitz and other "work camps" in Europe where the death was almost inevitable. 

The camp and prison were liberated in May 1945 by the Soviet Army. It is said only around 17 000 Jews survived the Terezín concentration camp. After the war, the camp was used as an internment camp for ethnic Germans. It was closed in 1948. 

Ghetto Museum

is located in the centre of Terezín town and helds a permanent exhibiton displaying living conditions of Jews imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp. Often, lectures are held there. Although the exhibition might be emotionally draining, it carries an important message: 

It show us that even at times of despair, prisoners would find their way to express themselves through art (performing plays watched even by the Nazi, classical music concerts, etc). You will learn that at these awful times facing death on daily basis, they still kept strong will to live and love.