On my second day in Prague, I decided to make the day trip to visit Terezin Concentration Camp. I knew that it was going to be emotional to visit such a nightmarish place, but as a huge history buff I felt that this was an important part of my personal education.
I would have encouraged this as an important educational trip for the 30 American study abroad students that rode the bus with me to the camp. However, after they screamed "Build Me Up Buttercup" for the sixth time on the bus I really stopped caring about their education. As you know, I am not always a fan of Americans' choices abroad.
Terezin was a beautiful town before the war, and continues as a functional town to this day.
Terezin was the site of the Red Cross' official inspection of the camps in 1944. To trick the Red Cross, the Nazis routed Jewish artists, musicians, children and athletes to Terezin to present a false pretense of intellectual camp life. The Nazis even encouraged music, art work and children's theater during this period, the remnants of which still exists on the premises. After visiting Terezin, the Red Cross approved the concept of camps.
The flower pots in the main square were built up beautifully for the Red Cross, and were transformed into barbed wire fences after the Red Cross approved the conditions of the camp.
Over 33,000 people died at Terezin during World War II - most from rampant disease caused by cramped living conditions. The survivors were shipped off to Auschwitz on the railroad that still crosses the town.
The ghost of the past haunts this existing town at every turn. How they continue to live here, I just don't know.
What an overwhelming, emotional day. Never, ever forget what happened here.
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