Footsteps of WWII · Czechia & Austria

Terezín Memorial

Camp memorial · Jun 1940 – May 1945

The story

Terezín, an 18th-century fortress town 60 km north of Prague, served the Nazis in two ways. From June 1940 the Small Fortress across the river was the Prague Gestapo's main prison, holding about 32,000 people. From 24 November 1941 the town itself became the Theresienstadt ghetto, a transit camp for Jews from the Protectorate, Germany, Austria and beyond, including the elderly and prominent. About 33,000 died there of hunger and disease, and about 88,000 were deported on to Auschwitz, Treblinka and other killing sites. In June 1944 the SS staged a 'beautified' ghetto for a Red Cross delegation and later filmed it for propaganda. The Red Army reached Terezín on 8 May 1945.

What to look for

The Ghetto Museum in the former boys' home, the Magdeburg Barracks with rooms on the ghetto's art, music and theatre, the crematorium and cemetery outside the walls, and across the river the Small Fortress with its cells, courtyards and execution ground. The town is lived in today.

Plan your visit

Small Fortress daily 9:00–17:00 (to 16:00 in winter); Ghetto Museum and Magdeburg Barracks daily 9:00–17:00; crematorium closed Saturdays. Combined tickets available. Some exhibitions are closed for reconstruction. Allow a full day. Check the website before you go.

Nearby sites

• Lidice Memorial · 41 km
• Operation Anthropoid Memorial, Prague-Libeň · 49 km
• National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror · 52 km
• Dresden Frauenkirche and the 1945 bombing · 67 km
• Bundeswehr Military History Museum, Dresden · 69 km

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