Terezin

We just returned from Terezin and are sitting in the hotel lobby;  we have six hours until our train leaves.  Everyone is exhausted -  we leave at 10 p.m. on an overnight train to Krakow.  

Ruined people

Walk through the street

The children quite pale

Rucksacks on their backs

There goes the transport to Poland

There go the old

And there go the young

And there go the healthy

And there go the sick

And if they survive they do not know.

Fragment from a poem published by the journal Vadem.  The author, Zdenek Weinberger, born 1928, was imprisoned in Terezin from April 24, 1942, till September 6, 1943, when he was deported to Auschwitz where he was incinerated in the furnaces.

Terezin was a small fortress constructed in the late 18th century.  The fortress was turned into a prison in 1940 and was then used as a Gestapo prison.  The town itself was turned into the Main Fortress where the local community was evacuated in late 1941 to make room for Jewish prisoners.  Terezin was not designed to be a death camp, rather a place to temporarily house people before they are departed to one of the surrounding death camps.  None the less, tens of thousands of people died here due to malnutrition and living conditions.

It is fascinating to visit the ghetto after spending time in Prague.  Most of the Jewish residents of Prague were sent to Terezin.  Terezin was first a political prisoner prison and in 1941 the first group 324 men arrived to prepare the town for mass arrivals.  Shortly after 7000 people were deported to Terezin.  Families were told that they were being taken to a "spa" town.

Terezin, unlike some other camps where physical labor was only intended to kill people, was a real "working" camp.  The prisoners had jobs that benefited the Nazis.     After the Wannsee conference it was turned into a "Ghetto for the old."  Over 155,000 prisoners passed through the Terezin Ghetto.  

The living conditions were horrific.  We were able to tour the barracks and spent some time learning about the daily life of the prisoners.  We were shown the individual cells where prisoners were punished by having to live in solitary confinement --in the DARK!  The longest period was for a week.  It was extremely upsetting to tour the prison cells.  We toured the museum where thousands of pictures that the children  drew were on display.  It is so moving to see the life through their eyes.  Moving,  and devastating   The creativity displayed was incredible.  It is sad to think about about the talent that the world lost through these lost people!

I am getting ready to take a bus to the train station, I will post pictures from Terezin shortly.