Terezin

Terezín (German: Theresienstadt) is an 18th-century fortress town 60 km north of Prague, built in 1780 by Emperor Joseph II. During World War II it was converted by the Nazis into a Jewish ghetto and transit camp: between 1941 and 1945 more than 150,000 Jews were held there — including 15,000 children — before deportation to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. Around 33,000 people died in the ghetto itself from overcrowding, starvation, and disease. The Nazis also used Terezín as a propaganda showpiece, staging a Red Cross visit in 1944 to conceal the true nature of the camp. Today the Terezín Memorial comprises the Small Fortress (the Gestapo prison), the Ghetto Museum in the former boys' home, the Magdeburg Barracks housing an exhibition on cultural life in the ghetto, and the National Cemetery. The children's drawings preserved from Terezín — the same body of work partly displayed at the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague — were produced here under the supervision of Bauhaus-trained artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis.