Terezin (Terezienstadt)

Situated 60km north west of Prague, the town of Terezin with its population of a few thousand inhabitants should have remained a sleepy little country town that few people could locate on a map. All that changed in 1939 with the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Terezin was used as a ghetto by the Nazis for the period of the Second World War. While it was not specifically intended as an extermination camp, it was still the final home of tens and thousands of Jews who died here in the appalling conditions. Those that did survive were sent to other extermination camps in the region, including Auschwitz. The Terezin Memorial actually consists ...  Read the complete review

Terezin is about 40kms outside Prague and is a 19th century fortress town that was turned into a Gestapo prison and Jewish holding camp during WW2. For those of you familiar with the history of the Holocaust, Terezin (Thierenstadt) is the show camp that the Red Cross were paraded around in 1944 by the Nazis. The Czechs have kept everything in tact and the 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (work means freedom) is still over the entrance to the main prison section. A guide will take you round and tell you about daily life in the prison for what was mainly political prisoners as well as Jews. It's best to go on a guided tour, of which there are ...  Read the complete review