A Quiet Day in Bohemia (Vol. II)

Leaving the hustle and bustle of Prague behind us, we decided to venture out into the Bohemian countryside to a Hapsburg fortress, made famous - as so many things in Europe were - by the pervasive presence of the Nazis, the town of Terezin:

This massive construction, built during the Austro-Hungarian empire, was intended to be a strong point against the Prussians. However, it was never used as intended. Instead it served as a prison camp from World War I through WWII. During the height of WWII, Terzin saw 150,000 Jews alone -- many other ethnicities were represented. Of these, 88,000 were "transported". In contrast, when not serving as a prison, Terzin housed upwards of 15,000 soldiers. As a ghetto, the place was a bit crowded, anywhere up to 60,000 people would be in this walled village at a given time.

Modern day Terzin has about 3,000 residents. When we visited on a Sunday, there was a strange, empty calm. It felt like a ghost town. The streets were empty and the occasional child riding a bike seemed out of place. Holocaust tourists would pass each other, in silence, dwelling in their own personal space of grief.

One reason Terzin has been made famous was its use as a "model" camp. Here the Nazi's concentrated many of the Jewish artists of the time to use as propaganda instruments with the red cross. Among them were Viktor Ullmann, Hans Krása, Kurt Gerron, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, and Zikmund Schul.

Throughout what would seem to be a run down, sad and empty town there were still reminders of the roman-esque Hapsburg era.

As we walked past the former infirmary, home of the sick and insane during the ghetto years, we encountered its guardian. The barks of this German shepherd were a surreal imposition an otherwise silent, sonic landscape and nearly scared Kim out of her skin.

One stop on the tour of the town was the hidden synagogue. A friendly local, who happened to live in the town "during" the time it was a ghetto, rented some space to the towns new Jewish residents.
Above is the entrance to what you see below, a wonderfully decorated house of worship.

One can not see a remnant of the holocaust without seeing train tracks. The Nazis industrialized murder on a scale never seen before in human history and the primary mode of transportation was the train. This ghetto was a model town which served as propaganda for the International Red Cross and simultaneously a waypoint for those traveling to Auschwitz.


And beside the tracks, a testament to the fact that life does go on:

In addition to the large fortress which houses the town of Terzin, there was a small fortress nearby which, during the war, was used as an SS prison. Here we saw the obligatory, and in hindsight almost ironic, Nazi message -- "Work makes you free".

As well as the memorials to those who were slaughtered.
Yet everywhere we went, there were always walls and fences. Here a family enjoyed some basketball behind barbed wire.

Life does indeed go on...