July 19 – Terezin

Last updated on August 22nd, 2019 at 02:35 pm

Explore Prague Terezin Fortress and Concentration Camp Tour with Professional Guide, Michal

[Apologies to Michal for any incorrect information shared in the blog. We are remembering to the best of our ability.]

Transportation to Terezin: Public transportation – metro and bus

We met Michal, our guide, at the Statue of King Wenceslas at the top of Wenceslas Square about a 5 minute walk from our hotel. We were surprised and delighted to discover the tour would just be the three of us. We used the Metro to get to the bus stop and then took the express bus to Terezin. While on the bus, Michal gave us some of the historical events leading up to the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, why the Nazis chose Terezin and the deportation of Czech Jews and Jews from other European countries to Terezin. One thing I didn’t know was England and France were allies of Czechoslovakia, but made an agreement with Hitler in 1938 to give the Sudetenland, Czech land where many Germans were living, to Germany without Czech knowledge or Czech leaders at the meeting. Czechoslovakia, without allies, did not resist when Hitler took over the entire country months later.

Small Fortress and cemetery

We were basically in Terezin before we saw it. The fortress was not built up, but dug down with dirt and grass on top of the brick walls. It was built in the 18th century to defend the Austro-Hungarian empire against the Prussians from the north.

Our bus arrived outside the city walls and we disembarked.  One of the first things we saw was a cemetery with approximately 10,000 graves nearly all from the 1940’s.  The cemetery is organized in Jewish, Catholic and Protestant sections. Between the sections and larger stones memorializing those in mass graves. Many of the Jewish graves have small stones and pebbles placed on them, according to the custom which asks that God keep tabs on the number in his flock, like shepherds did with their sheep.

We moved from the cemetery to the Small Fortress, designed as a prison, housing mostly political prisoners going back to it’s earliest days. Gabriel Princip, who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, starting World War I, was imprisoned in the Small Fortress and later died of tuberculosis in the infirmary in the city of Terezin. During the Nazi invasion of Europe, the Small Fortress was a regional prison for Jews committing “crimes”, Jewish sympathizers and political prisoners.

We saw small rooms with 3 or 4 levels of platforms for bedding, a picnic table and two benches, one sink, and a toilet that housed approximately 100 people. In the beginning there were mattresses but as they became insect-infested they were thrown out and not replaced. The room had a small coal stove and was given about 30 lbs. of coal per week. The prisoners were allowed to shower once a week. They were given 10 minutes to disrobe, shower, shave & redress. Their clothes were steamed to kill insects and they put the clothes on wet.

Prisoners were given a small piece of bread and a thin soup containing a few potatoes daily. They worked 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Some of the prisoners worked in a factory 7 kilometers from the prison and they walked back and forth daily. Due to conditions as well as brutal treatment, most prisoners died while in prison.

The prison had 18 guards for thousands of people and a few SS soldiers. The guards and their families were housed in a building on the edge of the fortress. They had a swimming pool, movie theater, etc. Some of the prisoners provided domestic help for the guards’ families.

Toward the end of the war, when it was clear the effort was not going well for the Nazis, many people were executed via firing squad, the largest being 52 just two days before the end of the war.

Propaganda Movie: “The Führer Gives a City to the Jews“

In the summer of 1944, 3 delegates from the Red Cross visited the Jewish Ghetto in Terezin for approximately 8 hours to address reports about Nazi mistreatment of Jewish people. We watched the movie detailing the staged activities, such as a soccer match and shops set up that Jewish people were supposedly running. After the film was completed by German Jewish prisoner Kurt Gerron and the Czech filmmaker Karel Peceny, Gerron was told he was being transferred for “special treatment”. He arrived in Auschwitz and was sent straight to the gas chamber.

Lunch at the Park Hotel, former lodging for SS

After touring the Small Fortress, we walked a few kilometers to the city of Terezin, which is also walled in the same style as the small fortress. We walked through the original gates which is now a pedestrian walkway. We were headed to the Park Hotel, a former barracks for the SS officers. We ate in a covered area in a small park across the street. Alan had goulash and a Soviet-era substitute for Coke (Kofola) and Joyce had chicken wiener schnitzel and coleslaw. The chicken wasn’t much different from US chicken fingers. We enjoyed visiting with Michal, our guide.

Jewish Ghetto

The town on Terezin was used by the Nazis as a Jewish Ghetto, largely because it was built as a walled city and easy to control.  The townspeople were given one week to pack and leave the city. They were promised monetary compensation and a place to go, but that usually didn’t happen.

Jews were brought from Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, Hungary & Austria,, and a large number were relocated from Prague.

The first Jews to arrive were wealthy Jews from The Netherlands and Denmark. They were told to inventory their possessions and they were being transported to a resort city were they could govern themselves. Some of the Jewish leaders were given flats in which to live with their families. Most of the houses in town were divided into rooms with bedding platforms similar to the prison or mattresses lined up on the floor. Most of the Jews were given maybe a half hour to pack, so they brought with them things they valued most.

At first there wasn’t a train station in Terezin so the Jews and Jewish sympathizers were dropped off outside of town and made to walk with their belongings into town. Eventually, the Nazis didn’t want the people in the countryside to see the people walking with their belongings, so they built train tracks to the edge of town. From the Jewish Ghetto, people were transported in cattle cars approximately 1000 at a time to death camps and concentration camps in Germany and Poland.

Crematorium, Columbarium,  and cemetery

According to Michal, the Nazis and Hitler’s original plan was to eradicate all Jews from Europe by moving them somewhere else. The transportation plans became too complicated and the places available to house them became full with nowhere to put more people. At Terezin as people died, they buried them in large cemeteries but soon there was also little space to bury so they built a crematorium. The crematorium had four furnaces, each could burn a body in about 30 minutes. The ashes were sifted to remove any gold and placed in a box. At first wooden boxes were used, but later they used cardboard boxes. Working round the clock, about 180 bodies were cremated each day, and the cremains were placed in a columbarium.   We learned that the Nazis kept detailed records.

Terezin Fortress history prior to World War II

During the second part of our tour we shifted to learning the history of the Terezín Fortress prior to World War II. It was built in the 18th century to defend the Austro-Hungarian empire against the Prussians from the north.

We were joined by a local guide with expertise in the fortress’s construction and 18th century military defensive strategy. He spoke only Czech so Michal translated for him.

After touring the relatively new, small museum exhibits we walked out between the walls. The fortress is constructed so the walls nearer the town are the tallest and they become shorter as you travel further from the town. With this design, the approaching enemy could only see the very tops of church steeples so they had little on which to aim canon balls.

There also was an elaborate system of moats between the walls that could be flooded or drained based on the best defensive strategy. Within the walls and under the walls were several layers of tunnels of varying heights where explosives could be set off to stop and advancing army or where soldiers within the tunnels could listen to the enemy undetected.

The local guide produced a small “ladder” made of 2x1s with four of five rungs for us to climb up from the moat into a tunnel. The first tunnels were taller and wider than a person with narrow vertical opening for a rifle. The tunnels then narrowed into about a person’s width and 160 cm high. Joyce could stand upright, but Alan could not. These tunnels were totally dark so we had flashlights.

The four of us were walking through various tunnels for 45 minutes to an hour (seemed a little longer to Joyce). The ingenuity involved in the engineering and strategy was impressive.  In spite of all the fail-safes designed into the structure, they were never tested as the town was never attacked.

On our trip back to Prague,  got to know Michal a bit better,  sharing stories about our life and our faith. 

Old Town Astronomical Clock Strikes the Hour

After the return bus trip to Prague, we arrived to our apartment in time to quickly walk to the Astronomical Clock to watch and listen to it strike 7 pm. The square in front of the clock was packed with thousands of people. We were able to take some video from one side, but got to hear it.

As we walked back to our apartment, we came upon a street folk dancing and music stage. We stopped to listen for several songs and captured a few on video.

Cafe Electric was close to the stage so we decided to eat dinner hoping to continue to hear the music. Cafe Electric’s outdoor seating was in the back, so we couldn’t really hear the music, but it was a pleasant space, decorated with different colors of umbrellas hung above us. Joyce had tasty pumpkin gnocchi in a mushroom sauce and Alan had a roast chicken dish with a sweet potato puree.

After dinner we packed to leave for Budapest. Our train leaves at 7:50 a.m. Traveling the Metro with Michal today and his instructions gave Joyce the courage to attempt using the Metro instead of a taxi to the train station.

We are certainly getting our exercise! According to Joyce’s iPhone she walked 4.3 miles on Wednesday, 6.4 miles on Thursday and 8 miles today.

https://exploreprague.cz/tours/terezin-concentration-fortress-camp/