Ústecký kraj

I had my reservations yesterday when the girls demanded to go to Terezin home of the infamous Terezin ghetto during WW2. Terezin is located an hour north of Prague. It would require a metro trip, a bus ride and a walk. Of course I only had a vague idea of when the bus would leave. It was going to be a hot day. I always get a little depressed going to concentration camps. Who doesn't. Despite my reservations I rose to the challenge.

We got going early with a 7:30 wake up which is our earliest wake. We made it to the correct bus stop at the correct time. After the bus driver had fought back the masses we were allowed on the very hot bus. Maybe he was trying to warn us not to go but we don't understand Czech.We were the only tourists on the bus. I think he must have been related to the airport driver in Prague but he was driving a bus. I wasn't too bus sick when we arrived.

The story of Terezin is almost unbelievable. Terezin was a walled fortress city before WW2. The Germans kicked out all of the 2000 inhabitants and used the city as a ghetto for thousands of Jewish people awaiting deportation to the death camps. Despite not being a death camp 33000 people died in Terezin from malnutrition and poor treatment. 155500 people passed through the ghetto, the majority of whom died before the end of the war. 15000 children. We visited the 2 museums in town, the colabarium, the crematorium. We couldn't find the hidden synagogue. It kept getting hotter as the day went on. Cheryl and I broke out our umbrellas for the sun. What I realized was odd about the town was that other than the 2 museum's the rest of the town was fully inhabited. People were living in buildings that had imprisoned Jewish people 75 years ago where many of them had died. If there are ghosts or spirits anywhere they must be in Terezin.

Not to be outdone by Terezin the town, there was a small fort outside of Terezin where the SS had imprisoned and executed Czech political and resistance prisoners during the war. We walked out in the heat for more death and misery. After a tour of the execution grounds we all had had enough so we caught an even hotter bus back to Prague having survived our one day tour of a concentration camp. Today was definitely not a Disney tour day.Lue lisää