Prague Day 2 - Terezin, Prague Square

After a restful nights sleep in a hotel in Prague, we drove about an hour out of town to Terezin, a unique ghetto used in the Holocaust. A former army garrison town, it was, among other things, the only one of the approximately 1000 ghettos scattered across Europe to evacuate an entire town, instead of walling off a section of the city. 

We began the tour watching a couple of films depicting the history of Terezin as well as a blend of a Nazi propaganda film mixed with depictions by Jews living there describing what really went on.  Following that we saw a scale model of the entire site and learnt what went on there. 

Our first stop of the day was to learn about the soccer league that operated in the ghetto for 3 years. It was very interesting to see this as a ghetto would be the last place you would expect a league, but we saw the tables and results as well as some actual footage from the games!

From there we went to the hidden shule which was located in a secret room behind a house. It had lots of writings on the wall and it was interesting to note that the verses that remain express hope, expectations and anguish, and offer a striking counterpoint to the known fate of those who davened there. 

We then walked to the main square to talk about the beautification of the ghetto in anticipation of the visit of Red Cross officials in 1944. For 6 months beforehand, the ghetto was made nice: gardens were planted, houses painted, and barracks renovated. The Nazis staged social and cultural events for the visiting dignitaries, including one girl asking if the SS officer had chocolate for her again, as if this was a regular occurrence. Of course, on this occasion he had and even ruffled her hair and gave the chocolate with a smile. Needless to say, once the visit was over, the Germans resumed deportations with most of the Jews of Terezin being sent to Auschwitz. 

The final building we visited showed exhibitions from the cultural side of the ghetto, including a children’s choir, paintings and portraits by many artists there at the time and the theatre company that was set up. All of these painted a vivid picture of what a Jewish cultural life actually looked like for these Jews and showed us that despite what the Nazis did to them, they still maintained their identity and displayed different forms of defiance.

After lunch, we went down to the river to the point where the memorial is set up. About 30,000 of the Jews were cremated in Terezin, not due to mass murder, but rather to clear the dead bodies in the most efficient way possible. Each pile of ashes was put into a marked box with the person’s name and birthday and was expected to be buried at the end of the war. Instead, towards the end of the Holocaust, the Nazis poured all the contents into the river, giving them their final resting place. 

We then drove back to Prague where we did a walking tour of the castles and bridges, learning about the Jewish connection to Prague and the Czech people over the centuries. 

 We also visited the John Lennon wall where we sang a rendition of ‘Imagine’. Finally we finished the day off with dinner in the JCC again before beginning an overnight bus ride to Krakow.

We very much enjoyed our time in Prague, especially exploring the city and learning about the very deep and interesting Jewish roots that are all over the city. We now travel to Poland where we will delve more into the events of the Holocaust.

Dion