Monday, January 28, 2008

Terezin Castle and Theresienstadt Ghetto





Theresienstadt Ghetto is the ghetto just outside Prague that the Nazis sent the local Jewish population to. Apparently over 160,000 souls disappeared through the gates and into the ghetto behind there. Terezin is the castle the the Gestapo took over, and the small village (of about 2000) became a ghetto for over 100,000. It has now been turned into a museum. There are walls just covered with photographs of the atrocities that were committed there. But the wall made up from Jewish childrens drawings is particularly heartbreaking.


The castle is still as the Nazis had it, right down to the gallows and bullet-ridden walls; and of course the legend over the gates "Work will set you free" - Bastards!!


Terezin has another claim to fame in history. It is the place the man who shot Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand and started World War 1 was taken after his conviction.



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