Terezín Memorial: A Complete Guide for Visitors from Prague

There are places you visit because they are beautiful. And there are places you visit because you have a responsibility to understand what happened there.

Terezín is the second kind.

Sixty kilometres north of Prague, the town of Terezín was built in the 1780s as a military fortress by Emperor Joseph II, named after his mother Empress Maria Theresa — known in German as Theresienstadt. In November 1941 the Nazis converted it into a Jewish ghetto. What followed over the next four years is one of the most documented and most devastating chapters of the Holocaust in Central Europe.

A Terezín Memorial day trip from Prague takes around one hour by private car. It is not an easy visit. It is an essential one.

What happened at Terezín

Between November 1941 and May 1945, over 140,000 Jews were sent to Terezín — from Bohemia and Moravia, from Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and other occupied countries. Approximately 33,000 people died here from hunger, disease and the brutal conditions of the ghetto. Approximately 88,000 more were deported east — primarily to Auschwitz — where the overwhelming majority were murdered.

The Nazis used Terezín for a specific and calculated purpose beyond mass imprisonment. Because it held prominent Jews — academics, artists, musicians, former military officers — it could be presented to the outside world as evidence of humane treatment. On 23 June 1944, a Red Cross delegation was invited to inspect the town after the Nazis had staged an elaborate beautification: streets were cleaned, gardens planted, a café opened, a children's pavilion built. The inspectors were deceived. A propaganda film — The Führer Gives a City to the Jews — was subsequently produced. The deception is documented in full at the Ghetto Museum.

The children of Terezín

Among the most moving aspects of the Terezín Memorial is the evidence of what the children who were imprisoned here created. In secret, organised by a handful of adult prisoners, children attended classes, wrote poetry, drew pictures and put on theatrical performances. Thousands of these drawings survived — small watercolours and pencil sketches of ordinary life, imagined or remembered. They are displayed at the Ghetto Museum, and they are among the most devastating documents of the Holocaust anywhere in Europe.

The boys' home in Block L417 — where children aged 10 to 15 lived, attended lessons and produced a hand-written magazine called Vedem (We Lead) — is one of the most important spaces in the Ghetto Museum. Of the approximately 15,000 children who passed through Terezín, fewer than 10% survived the war.

What to see at the Terezín Memorial

The Ghetto Museum is housed in a former school building in the town centre. It tells the full story of the Terezín ghetto through documents, photographs, personal testimonies and the children's drawings. Allow at least 90 minutes. This is the essential starting point for any visit.