Sandy Supposes....

Terezin the Terrible

PROMPT: Free day in Prague, choose a tour..

         I've read different accounts of World War II, and in particular, survivor stories. Because of this, I opted to join the Terezin Concentration Camp Day Tour. It is described as a monument to the worst of mankind: a reminder that evil lies in the heart of man.

         Travelling steadily in a comfortable rail car through stunning scenery it is difficult to comprehend that my fellow day trekkers and I were heading towards a concentration camp. The idea that Jewish citizens were rounded up and shipped to Terezin seems incomprehensible. Entire families were forced from their homes and stuffed like cattle into rail cars. Imagine the terror and the uncertainty. They were treated like animals; no provision for food or water, no comfort. They were scapegoats and victims of the Nazis.

         At first sight, Theresienstadt, or Terezin Camp is a forbidding stone structure resembling the fortress it was built to be. This Austrian stronghold was founded in 1780, and once was used a s a prison. Even today, it seems stark and barren. It consists of cold stone walls. Yes, I can envision it as a fortress of fear and death. The Nazis realized it was perfect as an internment camp.

         Walking through the main gate and hearing the echoes of our footsteps reverberating off the immense walls, I feel somber. The atmosphere is surreal. The atrocities committed here seem so distant from today. Nazis used the captive Jews as slaves splitting local ore, building coffins, sorting clothing and belongings confiscated from all Jewish prisoners at each of the camps, and creating a water supply system for this camp. Over the main gate all who entered saw the words " arbeit macht frei" translated to mean " work sets one free." Huh, just not for the Jews..

          The cell blocks are bleak and depressing with inescapable stone walls and stout doors. In the crematorium there are two huge iron furnaces. They stand stark and efficient. A simple plaque bears this poignant phrase, " my sorrow is continually before me."

          Outside in a courtyard is a haunting memorial, a sculpture depicting like-like figures of men, women, and children standing huddled together. Two people are embracing. One is struggling to hold a naked skeletal figure. It serves to remind us that too many Jews died needlessly and terribly. Terezin did not have a gas chamber, but many of its inmates died of disease and starvation. Many thousansa perished here in abject misery.

          The horror still seems real in the dismal, dank, and dark interior. The sight of so many markers/tombstones laid out uniformly in a cemetery is mind boggling.. The numbers cannot be denied. It is hauntingly peaceful there, heartachingly serene.

          Apparently, this concentration camp was a Nazi propoganda site. They duped the Red Cross into believing it was merely a Jewish ghetto at its worst, or a lively Jewish community with leisure activities. Red Cross observers were invited to tour the camp to see its inhabitants playing and composing music, teaching children to read, write, and draw, performing stage shows, creating artwork, and the like. In preparation for this reveal, many Jews were shipped to extermination camps. Others were threatened and coerced. The camp was not liberated until May 8th, 1945 by Soviet troops.          

During the war, Allied troops were also held here. After the war, many German soldiers were imprisoned here.

         Survivors kept records. The on-site museum lists names of the deceased and those who escaped . One notable death there was that of Sigmund Freud's sister, Esther Adolphine in 1942.

         We are truly blessed today. We were not forced to endure suffering on the scale meted out at Terezin. The prisoners deserve to be remembered as living, breathing people.