Terezin, Hungary

Terezin Work Camp

Terezin was originally built as a fortress by the Hapsburg's Franz Joseph and named for Theresa his mother. It had been used as a prison through the years. It's most famous inmate was Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Franz Ferdinand that began World War I. But it's more recent fame is as a Jewish Ghetto and transfer prison during World War II. The Germans in January 20, 1942 at the Wannsee conference came up with the "final solution" for the Jews and Gypsies. They created a timeline to deport every Jew found in their census beginning in Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary. Terezin became part of their plan. All 7000 residents of the town were forced to move in September, 1941 and a work camp was created to turn the town into a Jewish Ghetto (it had fortifications around the town already) and the small fortress into a work camp for Jews, political prisoners, Gypsies and gays. In front of the camp is the burial ground, where both the first occupants and last occupants are buried. Later they used mass graves and when they ran out of room, they cremated the bodies. The prisoners worked on the roads, railroads, and gardened to provide food for the Germans. In the small fortress, 32,000 were imprisoned and 1500 died. In the ghetto 150,000 Jews passed through this camp and 35,000 died here and another 87,000 died in transports to or at their final camp. Of course, we saw the sign "work makes you free" as we entered the fortress. The original barracks became mass prison cells where 300 soldiers had lived, they now housed 1700 prisoners. One of the mass cells, we visited held 40 prisoners, then 60, then 100 with only one toilet. Sanitation was a huge problem. They were fed a 1/2 liter of coffee and 200 grams of bread a day. If packages arrived from the Red Cross, all the ingredients were dumped together and fed to the prisoners (including the tooth paste). There were also 20 isolation cells, where the prisoners could be kept in the dark for days or weeks to soften them for interrogation. In one room, we saw a line of sinks, which was supposedly the barber shop. This was only for show, however, the water wasn't hooked up. We also saw a section of the fortress, built by the Nazi's for prisoners of war and political prisoners. It held 700 inmates and required only one guard to patrol the entire place.

Child's picture of life in the Ghetto

 

The Terezin Ghetto is famous for a propaganda film, created by the Red Cross on June 23rd, 1944. Before the Red Cross visit, 17000 old and sick were deported from the Ghetto to other camps. The Red Cross came for a four hour visit, the ghetto had been cleaned up, the people were in civilian clothes, they staged a football game and concert during the visit, and of course, everyone was smiling and happy. The visit lasted four hours, two of which were at dinner.

The camp was liberated on May 8th, 1945, but even after the liberation another 700 people died because of a Typhoid epidemic which had swamped the camp.

We ended our trip with a farewell dinner up in the Castle area. It has been a tough trip for Mary, she came on the trip with tight muscles in her shoulders and back, and that problem remains on this last day. But we found Eastern Europe quite interesting especially hearing about the varied history of the area. The personal stories of our guides and special guests were also fascinating, especially about their experiences during the end of communism. Our group of nine travelers worked out really well. Highlights of the trip included: the snow and castles of Transylvania, the surprising clean and beautiful city of Belgrade, the cruising down the Danube with its mists, flat farm land, and the Iron Gate, and finally the two stately cities of Budapest and Prague, which were as beautiful as their reputation. For those who would like to see more pictures and videos, a 20 minute narrated video of this trip is available on youtube.

Our traveling group