Friday, 14 November 2008

Terezin

Friday, November 14th, 2008

Terezin is a large village/small town about 40 miles north-east of Prague. The Nazis named it Theresienstadt and used the fortress as a transit camp for Jews en route to Auschwitz. Plenty died of malnutrition and disease and never made it to the gas chamber. It was a show town too so when the Red Cross turned up, it was all decorated and seemingly happy Jews sipped coffee on the sidewalk.

I went there a few years ago. The town's quite nice if somewhat austere and the fortress camp is still there. But the camp is just buildings, empty and shorn of their fittings apart from the odd bunk. It doesn't look nice but I found it hard to imagine what it was like when full.

So I went to the museum and it had much the same Holocaust stuff as I have seen elsewhere. But it also had a collection of children's paintings and here are three. You don't need me to explain them. I just went outside and wept and you would too.


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