Terezín – A Fortress Turned Ghastly Ghetto Momento

July 10, 2023 by admin

Arbeit macht frei (Work will set you free)
German concentration camp phrase

Some things ought to be confined to the dark twisted tales of fantasy or the horror of nightmare… and most of it is. Yet there is one place in the world that makes me shudder, you know, in that primal way, where your pure base instincts tell you to leave. This is a place so evil that its very fibre is tainted, a darkness cast over it, and that place is Terezin the most accursed place in the Czech Republic.

Geography
A Brief History
What to do in Terezín!
Conclusion

Geography

Built along the Ohře River, near its confluence with the Elbe, Terezín occupies an important strategic point in North Bohemia. On the west side of the river, you will find the fortified city itself, while on the opposing bank you will find a fortress home to the grim Theresienstadt concentration camp. The camp was once called the small fortress and was meant to guard the city’s opposite flank, while the main fortress was actually a citadel with a city to service and house the imperial garrison.

The serene beauty of the region, marked by hills in the distance, masks what lies beneath.

A Brief History

Terezín was not always this way, the crumbling fortification tell a story that differs from its original promise. From its humble beginnings, it was once known for its defensive features; as well as featuring a garrison town with orderly streets and some noteworthy public squares. This was a state of the art facility! For all their faults, the Habsburgs ruled a great European empire and one of their strong suits was building and planning cities. Much of central Europe was shaped by their rule and many of their public buildings are still prominent in those cities.

Despite its current condition, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Not only are some limited restorations taking place but life is ever so slowly slowly returning to the city. There is still a lot of work to do but for now let’s dive into the history of this unique fortress town.

Habsburgs

A city built inside a fortress; the enlightened Monarch Joseph II began to construction on Theresienstadt in 1780. Theresienstadt was named after his mother the late Empress Maria Theresa. As one can deduct by the size of the fortification, this was a massive undertaking. After ten years all works in the region were completed, including the small fortress on the opposite bank of the river and the city itself.

The city was never under siege, a fact that could be chalked up to the imposing stature of the works and the expansion of the Austrian military frontier with the Ottoman Empire having been pushed south towards the city of Novi Sad in Serbia long ago.

During the First World War the fortress served as a prison. In fact the famed (and slightly incompetent) assassin Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was imprisoned here. He, died there of tuberculosis in 1918.

The Second World War

After the 1938 occupation of the Czech lands, the prisons of the nation began to fill up with victims of Nazi terror. As such the small fortress was selected as a new Gestapo facility. The first prison on the site was conceived to hold mainly Czechs but was later expanded to hold other nationals such as Yugoslavs, Poles, Germans and Russians among many others. Their crimes were mostly acts of civil resistance including family and friends of the assassins of Reinhard Heydrich.

In 1940 the city itself was cleared of residents and re-adapted as a Jewish Ghetto. The overcrowded camp was used as a transit point before they were were sent to extermination camps such as Auschwitz. Over 88 000 residents were shipped out from this location. The Soviets took the camp on 9 May 1945.

Modern Era

After the war the prison served as an internment camp for ethnic Germans, until 1948. The first phase of the prison was run poorly, before being transferred to the Czechs. The camp then served as a deportation center for Czech Germans back to Germany.

The Czech army maintained a presence here until 1996 but a conservation plan was not enacted until 2002. In 2008 a large portion of bronze grave markers from the cemetery were stolen.

Fun Fact!

Fun Fact: Alexander Ypsilantis, a greek figure in their war of independece was once imprisoned here. He is perhamps the second most famous prisoner to have served his time here.

What to do in Terezín!

Walking around the decaying city, I was filled with dread…. there is something off here I thought to myself. The dusty streets the eerie ghost town … should be destroyed abandoned they know too but good kept for memory of holocaust antisemitism on rise

Arrival by Train in Bohušovice nad Ohří (and how to get to Terezín)

Although many tour buses leave for the city, it is just as easily accessible from Prague by train. To do this you will have to exit the train at the town of Bohušovice, just south of Terezín.

From here you can take a bus into town, or walk north along the main road, for a total of 2.5km or a brisk thirty minutes. The walk there may make it easier to access the Krematorium since it sits between both towns. The choice is yours.

The area around the station itself is quite industrial and there is little to see here.

There is however a quaint main square with a church, city hall and a statue of Jan Hus.

On the north side of town you will find the typical soviet apartment blocks.

Past the apartment buildings on the north end of town you will be able to follow the sidewalk along the main road into Terezin or the Krematorium. In the distance you will see the central Czech hills north of Litomerice. It is a beautiful part of the landscape.

Památník Terezín (Krematorium), Soviet Cemetery and Memorials

Your fist glipse of the Terezín killing fields will be the Památník Krematorium (crematorium).

Now a museum, the yellow crematorium contains leftover ovens from the incineration process.

At the entrance of the cemetery stands a First World War memorial.

At the center of the cemetery stands a giant menorah, surrounded by Jewish graves. You will also find some of the original gravestones pre-crematorium stood up against the enclose wall. Over 30 000 were cremated here.

You will also find an old Soviet war memorial, should probably be demolished, fuck Russia!

In the crematorium parking lot you will find a strange levitating rock, donated by European Jewish congress. It symbolizes the remembrance of the victims of the Shoa rising above the graves of the dead towards a better future. It was inaugurated in 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the camp.

South Walls, Railway Station and Kolumbárium

Once you are done at the crematorium follow the railway north into town. Here you will cross the threshold of the outer fortress walls.

Today an exciting re-naturalization project is taking place in the old water fed moat. A large beaver like rodent called nutria is taking ownership of the man made habitat though a conservation project seeking the reintroduce them to the region. At this moment they are fed bread but hopefully in future years they will be a stand alone colony.

As you will notice, much of the old fortifications lie in a state of ruin, and are not in great shape.

As you prepare to cross over the moat into the city you will see the entrance to the Kolumbárium (Columbarium). This is a word that I was unfamiliar, so I looked it up. Columrarium is a place where funerary urns are store. Interested, I peered inside.

Here you will find a well-kept museum, showing how the Jewish Ghetto’s inhabitants prepared the bodies of the deceased for cremation nearby. The facility built right into the ravelin houses the paper urns of the Ghetto’s victims. Today a museum will detail the life and death of Jews in the Ghetto. The facility is free to enter.

One of the primary displays shows a Jewish ceremonial room for the dead as well as a Christian one. You will also find a funerary carriage and coffins, with displays depicting Jewish life in the Ghetto.

On the side of the road is a second facility carved into the entrails of the ravelin. Here you will be greeted with a memorial to the 15 000 victims that passed here.

Out of the ravelin though a dark passageway is the original entrance to the Columbarium. A stone funerary urn stands outside. Installed during the Nazi “beautification” of the Ghetto. This project will be discussed further but for now, it is essential to remember that the Nazi’s welcomed foreign dignitaries such a representative of the red cross, here occasionally to show they were not monsters. They would hide the evidence of their crimes and trot out a few healthy Jewish musicians and intellectuals to greet them.

In 1944, the Nazis ordered inmates to clear the columbarium of urns to hide their crimes. Some were ditched in the river, the paper urns burnt and other buried.

You will notice old, rusted railway tracks coming into the city from beside the Columbarium. I think I don’t have to mention what cargo they once transported considering that so far we have explored a cemetery, crematorium, a columbarium and as you follow the tracks into the city, a ghetto.

As you cross the bridge you will see the remnants of two old brick pillboxes that once guarded the entrance to the old town.

Although in rough shape, one can tell that they were state of the art at the time of their construction.

The tracks will then come to a stop near a yellow building past those pillboxes. The railroad was completed by camp inmates for a purpose that I am sure you can surmise.

This is the station in which all departures and arrivals of prisoners took place. Yet as tragic as this is, this remnant was also a center of for the Jewish resistance and their struggles within the city.

Prison Bastion, West and North Walls

Not far from where you entered the old town you will find a massive western facing bastion. In my opinion it is the most impressive section of walls, and that from which you will get some of the best vantage points.

At the base of the wall you will find a plaque dating from the construction of the fortress by the enlightened Austrian emperor Joseph II.

Much of this grim, prison like, structure has been converted into a a manufacturing area and old war weaponry has been put out on display. There is still a lot of old scrap metal in this area and it can a little daunting to walk through .

You will also find another gatehouse that will lead you under the walls and back into the moat.

This is a great way to get a feeling for how wide and deep the moat is and how it would be a deathtrap for any would be conqueror that could cross the first set of walls.

A nearby pillbox has been converted into a visitors centers, museum and starting point for walking tours, including visits to the underground corridors of Terezin. Inside you will also find a display showing the recent renovations to historic structures that were in danger of collapse and demolition.

From the top of the structure you will get that promised view of the city. The structure in the foreground is the Wieserův dům. It was once the home of a wealthy manufacturer and supplier of building materials. It was complete in 1788 and served as the garrison officer’s casino for a time.

You will also get a great view of the fortifications with the backdrops of the mountains in the distance.

If you walk along the raised side of the moat heading north you will find another abandoned battlement which looks pretty cool from this top down point of view.

This pentagonal battlement is still used for a commercial function so it one of the few ways to see it without feeling like you are intruding.

In the neighborhood facing this battlement you will find the old garrison buildings now transformed into the faculty of psychology or laying in abandon.

Holocaust Museum, Central Square and the City Center

Although a little rough around the edges, a walk around town will reveal a well planned city despite the paved over cobble and crumbling roof lines. Inscribed as a UNESCO site, the rational lines that make up the streets are a product of the enlightenment as prescribed by the Austrian Emperor the enlightened monarch Joseph II.

Some of the structures still retain their charm despite their age.

A strange and out of place structure is the large smokestack and concrete cinderblock facility built 1941. The year of construction gives me ominous vibes but I don’t know enough about the history of the structure to make an assessment.

Keep an eye out for the Terezin Memorial at the Magdeburg Barracks, containing more Holocaust displays. The main holocaust museum will recovered below. You will also find old warehouse buildings.

In the north end of the city you will find Smetanovy Sady, one of the two public parks in the old city. This one is nice and lush and includes a grand buildings and a circular gazebo.

Nearby, in the very center of the city you will find the most important public place in Terezin. Headlining the square space is the neoclassical Church of the Resurrection of the Lord as well as important buildings such as the main post office .

Just north of the main square, you will find the Ghetto Museum. This is a must see, especially if you plan on visiting the small fortress across the river later on.

Inside you will find a theater with a 45 minute movie about the history of the Czechoslovak Jews and what they went through here. It is actually quite informative, even if a little out of date. The upper floors are move modern and include actual displays with more information.

Across the street from the Holocaust Museum you will find the concrete Pomník osvobození (Liberation Monument).

East Walls, Mills and Riverfront

The massive east ravelin faces the Ohře river, across which you will find the Theresienstadt concentration camp also known as the Small Fortress.

Along the riverbanks you will find the ruined remnants of industrial activity such as old warehouse and factories.

The most notable building along this strength of river is an old masonry mill.

Upstream is a small hydro installation and a wear controlling the flow of water downstream.

Theresienstadt concentration camp

After crossing the river near the mill the industrial land will give way to farmers fields and a view of the fortress and a turn off for a car museum called Automuzeum Terezin.

Just passed this a tree lined street will lead you to find a large Star of David amides a large cemetery dedicated to the camp’s victims.

The main entrance to the fort is painted white an black and is rather iconic in a city all but devoid of color due to its ruination.

The fortress at first served to house political prisoners but was soon re-adapted to target Jews.

One of the most touching parts of the concentration camp is located near the front, in a sorting courtyard with offices on each side.

Above a portico you will find a repulsive slogan:

Arbeit Macht Frei, or “Work makes (one) free”
Concentration Camp Slogan

If this does not give you pause, it should.

Down the road from this courtyard you will find the old house of lords, transformed into living quarters for the camp commander Heinrich Jöckel andother SS officers and their familly. He was hangned on the 26 of October 1946 in nearby Litoměřice after fleeing the area in 1945. He was handed back to Czech authorities after being capture by the USA that year.

In the back half of the small fortress you will find the spooky habitation and cells for some of the male prisoners.

At the time of my visit it was completely empty and this gave me lots of time to reflect.

Before you leave look out for a passageway leading north into the fortress moat.

Here you will find a concrete pool dug and forcibly constructed by the prisoners of the camp for the camp commander.

Look out for a monument to the victims of Nazi atrocities.

Back near the entrance, head south to find the woman’s courtyard. Dating from 1942 it incorporates more of the original fortress due to its makeshift nature. I have included a few slides of its areas below so that you can appreciate its spooky presence.

Conclusion

Few times in my life have I felt as unsettled and uncomfortable as I did in Terezin. The sense of foreboding was much stronger for me at this location then at many other Holocaust sites that I had previously visited. There is something authentic about this place that has not washed away the sins of its past and although it was not a pleasant experience by any means, it was one that I don’t regret any bit whatsoever.