Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, and once again we are reminded to never forget the tragedies of the Holocaust. We are reminded to fight for truth at every turn, and to do acts of kindness in the names of those 6 mlllion innocent Jews who perished at the hands of evil.
In 2019 I had the chance to visit the Jewish ghetto of Theresienstadt, located just an hour’s drive from Prague. There are several museums and a tour by foot of the entire town, and it is a very solemn experience, but one that is of course highly recommended.
Theresienstadt Ghetto was established in November 1941by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (a German-occupied region of Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served two main purposes: it was simultaneously a waystation to the extermination camps, and a “retirement settlement” for elderly and prominent Jews to mislead their communities about the Final Solution. Its conditions were deliberately engineered to hasten the death of its prisoners.
The ghetto was established by the transportation of Czech Jews in November 1941. The first German and Austrian Jews arrived in June 1942; Dutch and Danish Jews came at the beginning in 1943, and prisoners of a wide variety of nationalities were sent to Theresienstadt in the last months of the war. About 33,000 people died at Theresienstadt, mostly from malnutrition and disease. More than 88,000 people were held there for months or years before being deported to extermination camps and other killing sites.
Above: The Sudeten barracks where all those who arrived were “processed”
Above: Rooms within the Sudeten barracks 
Above: A sign at the Sudetan barracks saying “work sets you free” 
Above: A look at the old fortress walls.
Above: The “columbarium”In this building, bags of ashes of all the deceased were stored on shelves.
That is it for my photos, I will add more here later.
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