Terezin

Let us remember: Terezin was not an extermination camp. It was designed as a containment camp for Czech Jewry and then as a transit camp. As the number of inmates increased from 10,000 to 60,000, the only way to alleviate the strain was to ship people to Auschwitz in the infamous transports. Its strongest claim to infamy is that it was used for propaganda purposes: the Nazis allowed two Red Cross visits to the camp to show how well they were treating the inmates. A film was even made there, showing how good the conditions supposedly were (we were shown the film in the museum at the end of the tour).

I am not going to write any more about the purpose of Terezin or what happened there: the link provided above and the link in yesterday's blog will tell more than I can ever do. Any words which I might write would only cheapen the memory of Czech Jewry.

There isn't that much to see in the trip to Terezin: the Small Fortress has been left virtually intact, displaying its mind-numbing cruelty, but this was used as a Gestapo installation, mainly for Czech political prisoners, not necessarily Jewish. In fact, its most famous prisoner was Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife on June 28, 1914,  leading to the First World War. Princip died from tuberculosis on April 28, 1918. The Ghetto, as opposed to the Small Fortress, does not really exist anymore, and only a few buildings have remained as a reminder of what was.

456 Jews from Denmark were sent to Theresienstadt in 1943. These were Jews who had not escaped to Sweden before the arrival of the Nazis. Included also in the transports were some of the European Jewish children whom Danish organizations had been attempting to conceal in foster homes. The arrival of the Danes is of great significance, as the Danes insisted on the Red Cross's having access to the ghetto. This was a rare move, given that most European governments did not insist on their fellow Jewish citizens being treated according to some fundamental principles. The Danish king, Christian X, later secured the release of the Danish internees on April 15, 1945. The White Buses, in cooperation with the Danish Red Cross, collected the 413 who had survived.

The guides mentioned that even after the War finished, over 1,000 Jews died in Terezin as a result of typhus. After the war, Czech nationals of German parentage who served in the Wehrmacht were imprisoned in the Small Fortress, and it seemed that the ethnic Czechs performed a little ethnic cleansing of their own, in retaliation for what had happened before. I do not condone this.

According to the guide, during the Communist years, Terezin was left abandoned, and that it was only in 1996 that the site was restored and open to the public, thus informing people of a certain age about events which they never knew took place. I saw yesterday evening a poster advertising the 'Museum of Communism'; I imagine that this is not a particularly popular place to visit but I do wonder what kind of exhibits they show. Checking (sorry) its site, I see that it's only about ten minutes from where we are, so maybe I'll visit this afternoon.