Terezín Memorial: History That Must Not Be Forgotten

Sixty kilometres north of Prague, the fortress town of Terezín looks much as it has for two centuries — solid stone walls, wide streets, a military geometry that speaks of the Habsburg empire that built it. Emperor Joseph II founded it in 1780 and named it Theresienstadt, after his mother Empress Maria Theresa. It was never attacked.

What happened here between 1941 and 1945 is a different story entirely.

A private Terezín Memorial tour from Prague takes you to one of the most important Holocaust memorials in Europe — with a licensed guide who brings context, precision and humanity to a place that demands all three.

The ghetto — "The Führer Gives a City to the Jews"

In November 1941 the Nazis began transforming Terezín — Theresienstadt — into a Jewish ghetto and transit camp. Over the following years, more than 150,000 Jewish men, women and children from across Central Europe passed through its walls: from Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark. Around 33,000 died here from starvation and disease. Nearly 88,000 were deported east to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. Of the 15,000 children imprisoned at Terezín, fewer than one in ten survived.

Terezín served a second, uniquely sinister purpose: propaganda. The Nazis presented it to the outside world as a model Jewish settlement — a place where Jews supposedly lived in relative comfort, governed themselves, attended concerts and plays. When the International Red Cross visited on 23 June 1944, the Nazis had spent weeks on what they called "Operation Embellishment" — painting buildings, constructing fake shops and cafés, deporting thousands to Auschwitz beforehand to reduce the appearance of overcrowding. The Red Cross representative reported seeing nothing amiss. Shortly after, the Nazis filmed The Führer Gives a City to the Jews — a propaganda film never publicly distributed. Deportations to Auschwitz resumed that autumn.

What the Terezín Memorial includes

The Ghetto Museum is housed in the former town school, where during the war it served as a home for Jewish boys aged 10 to 15. The exhibitions document the history of the ghetto, the lives of its prisoners, and the remarkable cultural resistance that took place within these walls — lectures, concerts, theatre, art classes, clandestine education. The children's drawings and poems preserved here are among the most moving things you will ever see.

The Small Fortress, separated from the main ghetto, served as a Gestapo prison for political dissidents and resistance fighters from 1940 to 1945. Around 32,000 people were imprisoned here. Walking through the cells, corridors and execution yard is a different and equally necessary experience.

The National Cemetery lies outside the Small Fortress — the burial place of thousands of victims, with a large Star of David monument at its centre.