July 2018
We recently visited one of the most famous Jewish ghettos of World War II - Terezín.
Terezín is located 50 minutes north of Prague. Originally it was a fortress built at the end of the 18th century
Today it's a rather empty Czech town with a dark atmosphere
Actually, from the first minutes it's not immediately clear that you're in Czechia.
Here much speaks of this town's past
As was said initially, the place previously had a defensive role, but during World War II something went wrong - they started deporting all the country's Jews here
The place was chosen not by chance - it's hard to escape from a fortress
In total, more than 150 thousand people were deported here
Today the events are reminded of by a large cemetery
In fact, Terezín was not a concentration camp in the full sense of the word
The fortress was used as a ghetto, and as a model ghetto - the Nazis used it as propaganda that people lived quite well in such places
Terezín was liberated by the Red Army. It's still unclear whether the American army was on site earlier, but liberation by American forces had to be postponed because it was strategically important for the USSR to liberate Terezín itself
Today Terezín is an extremely quiet Czech town, quite run-down.
With unique blue street signs
With mercury thermometers on windows (you can't really find those here anymore)
With a cardboard policeman on the road monitoring speed (in the center of the frame behind the tree)
And in general, everything is yellow and dark, which is rare in Czechia in the middle of summer.
Don't fight wars, in short
Nothing good has come of it yet
July 2022
It so happened that I had to return to Terezín because someone decided to celebrate their birthday there
So not only did I have to return, but for a couple of days. Outside +30°C, forests are burning, but inside it's cool and nice
The main idea of Terezín hasn't changed - it's a former fortress
There are no other towns like this in Czechia
On the bridge there are these kinds of holes
You can click. Terezín is a great reminder that war is bad, so an unknown artist decided to express his opinion about Russians due to the current context
We went to the ghetto museum again
This time with a tour. The old Jewish guy didn't give a fuck at all and joked about Germans, regarding war and war crimes he also didn't hold back. At the same time, about the current situation he also expressed himself in the spirit of "war is bad, not a particular nation" (which I agree with)
And what about Terezín as a town?
It turned out that from there it's a 40-minute walk to Litoměřice. And that's already good.
I recommend, by the way, walking not along the waterfront but along the "bike path". It's much better maintained.
And in Terezín itself there isn't even a single chain store. There's literally nothing there at all.
Obviously, for Czechs the town is a household name and nobody wants to live there because of unpleasant associations.
The town is therefore run-down, dark, without a decent future. Although, in my opinion, it's a real shame - the town is unique, beautiful, with a good location.
In other words, if it were up to me - I'd live there and make it so that people would come to see that war is indeed bad and that there are alternatives to it. Because honestly, in Terezín they've forgotten about the alternatives for now.