Throughout grade school and high school you read and are taught about the tragedies of the Holocaust, but nothing quite prepares you for an actual visit to a concentration camp. Part of our study abroad program was to attend the Terezin concentration camp located in the Czech Republic. We all boarded a bus Tuesday morning and took an hour drive outside of Prague to the once Jewish Ghetto of Terezin. Terezin was used by the Nazi’s as a model camp in which they fooled the Red Cross to believe that the living conditions for the exported Jews was acceptable. More than 150,000 Jews were sent to Terezin, and although it was not an extermination camp about 33,000 died in the ghetto mostly because of the horrific conditions. About 88,000 inhabitants were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps and by the end of the war there were only 17,247 survivors.
After our visit to the concentration camp we went into the Jewish Ghetto of Terezin and visited two museums. These museums only reinforced the impact of the concentration camp, we saw many videos of those who had survived and read numerous letters from those who never made it out.
While this was a tough day for myself, many of my classmates and professors, I believe we all learned a valuable lesson—never forget the past and always learn from the mistakes of others.
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| Jewish Cemetery at the front of the camp |
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| Before becoming a concentration camp Terezin was a military fortress |
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| "Labor will set you free" sign at the entrance of the camp |
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| A small room that housed over 600 people |
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| The crematorium |
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| Inside the camp |
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