Czech Blog post #8 - When will we learn?

On  Saturday,September 27, we took the hour-long bus ride to the northern Czech city ofTererzin.

In January of 1780,Habsburg Emperor Joseph II ordered that a fortress, named Theresienstadt afterhis mother, Empress Maria Theresa, be built. Construction lasted ten years andincluded the building of the town of Theresienstadt. It was originally intended to be a resort for Czech nobility. 

The fortress, or the"Small Fortress", was on the east side of the Ohře River, while thewalled town, called the "Main Fortress", was on the west side. TheElbe River is directly to the north.  

During wartime, 11,000soldiers could be stationed there, and trenches and low-lying areas around thefortress could be flooded for defense, but at no time was the fortress under directattack. 

Towards the end of the19th century, the fortress was used as a prison, and during World War I, it wasa political prison camp. Its most famous prisoner was Gavrilo Princip, aBosnian Serb student, who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This assassinationis the event which was the catalyst for the outbreak of World War I. Principwas sent to the Small Fortress at Terezin to serve a twenty-year sentence, butdied on April 28, 1918, nearly four years later from tuberculosis and prolongedmalnutrition.

When the Austro-HungarianEmpire fell in 1918, the town became part of the newly formed state ofCzechoslovakia. Twenty years later, Nazi Germany annexed the city and thesurrounding lands. By 1940, the Prague Gestapo Police set up the prison inthe Small Fortress. By the end of the war, 32,000 prisoners, including 5,000women, passed through the Small Fortress, many of whom perished while there.

During this same time, onthe other side of the river, at the Main Fortress, the Nazis created the JewishGhetto. Here, over 150,000 Jews were interned, including 15,000 children. Mostof these people were from Czechoslovakia, but there were also thousands of Jewssent there from Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Though not anextermination camp, thousands died from the deplorable conditions, and manyothers were sent to the death camps. At the end of the war, there were only17,247 survivors.

In my travels, I've beento several other prisons and death camps where innocent people have been held,starved, tortured, and killed because of their race, religion, or creed. I'mcertainly not fascinated by these places; I'm appalled. But I think everyoneneeds to see for themselves the atrocities that have been inflicted on ourfellow human beings. Maybe someday this sort of madness can stop.

These pictures are ones drawn by the children who were held in the Jewish Ghetto.
When the Jewish families were taken from their homes and moved to Terezin, they were allowed to take one suitcase to carry all of their belongings. 

“We felt it was soimportant to release the film at this moment in response to the level of hate,intolerance and violence currently happening right here in America,” sharedSmulowitz.  “We must learn from thelessons of the past about where this level of hate can lead.  Terezin also offers an inspirational messageabout the power of hope and love, so needed in these times.” Quote from 2020, by Anna Smulowitz, playwrightand director of the play and film, “Terezin”.  

For more information on Terezin, click this link.