#5 Theresienstadt model town in the Holocaust ...

The name Theresienstadt is familiar to me because it comes up as the birth place for several of my ancestors so I was keen to learn more about it & to be able to put an image to the place name.  My knowledge of its time during the Holocaust was patchy because the Holocaust is such a vast topic spread over much of Europe with hundreds of camps so you cannot know the full details of each & I was keen to know what role Theresienstadt had in the Holocaust. 

    

On a cold October morning, we entered the pretty town, passing the walled fortress, parking up then doing the short walk to it.  We were greeted by many graves of the National Cemetery where victims of the Gestapo Police prison,  the Terezin Ghetto & the death transports from Litomerice concentration camp were buried individually & in mass graves. A large cross & Star of David stands amongst the headstones. 

 Another guide joined us & he took us around the fortified castle where Jews from all over Europe were held. Reinhard Heydrich's reputation followed  us again from Prague to here as he decided at Wannsee that Theresienstadt would house prominent Jews over the age of 65 & those who were too high profile to be transported to other camps where they would be missed. To deflect attention, Heydrich attempted to model Theresienstadt as a spa town, a caring place where Jews were safe. 

We were shown a propaganda film that was made at the time showing life there as idyllic & safe. We knew that this was not true & the inhabitants had to put on a show for the Red Cross - it was not something they could refuse to do under the dangerous circumstances. 

The conditions & rooms we were shown were similar to other sites we had been, including the familiar Arbeit Macht Frei sign over the courtyard entrance. 

I had crossed paths some years back with Gavrilo Princip who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, his wife Sofia & their unborn child in Sarajevo & this was the catalyst for the start of WW1. I had not expected to cross paths with the imprisoned assassin in Theresienstadt & where he died in an isolation cell. 

History really does cross countries & sometimes we are fortunate to be able to connect names & events which gives a better understanding of the complexities of war & peace, of winners & losers ... 

The walled fortress once again echoed the brutality of the treatment of its mainly Jewish prisoners - the executions by bullet etc but not by gas chambers. 

We crossed in to the town to visit the excellent Ghetto  museums set over several floors before carrying on down the pretty streets to the Magdeburg Barracks building set up as a memorial to that time of history, the rooms show the crowded conditions under which the transported had to live & survive. 

The exhibitions also show that many were artistic people, musicians etc, then back out on to the pretty streets for a walk to the Jewish cemetery that had ovens to dispose of the dead. The large cemetery with its Star of  David a sobering reminder of the dark history that played out on these now pretty streets. 

We respectfully covered our heads for the trip to the Jewish cemetery on the side of town with the large Star of David & it crematoria where the dead were. 

A monument was built & a memorial site laid out to commemorate the liquidation of the bigger part of the cinerary urn that contained the ashes of the victims cremated in the Jewish Cemetery Crematorium. In November 1944, the ashes were thrown in to the Ohre river & the urns were burnt to hide the deeds.

It was a sombre scene being so close to the crematoria & several of us lit candles & said prayers ...  

It was very interesting to be able to put images to a place name that I knew through my family history research, how the decisions made in Wannsee stretched far across our tour, effecting many nationalities & towns across Europe. 

Thank you for stopping by & allowing me to share this with you on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, cherish peace, 

Dee