Prague II - Terezin

I was up bright and early at 6:45 the next morning, having decided to spend the day outside of Prague, at the former Nazi camp of Terezin (Theresienstadt in German). After a quick breakfast I took the metro a couple of stations, to the bus station at Florenc. I tried to make sense of the vast amount of schedules posted, but it was all in Czech, so I had to get in line and ask at the info counter. I was directed to the correct ticket office, where I purchased a ticket to Terezin. The bus didn't leave for another good hour or so, so I killed some time with hot chocolate and pastries at a cafe.

Buying tickets in advance turned out to be a good idea, since this meant I actually had a reserved, numbered seat. I watched in amazement as passengers were piled on, long after all the seats had been taken. I cranked the ventilation over my seat to max to quench the overpowering odor of the sweaty, unshaven native next to me and blissfully managed to doze for most of the journey.

The whole town is situated inside a huge fortification. I quickly located the Museum of the Ghetto, which is a very good one (although the introduction film can be skipped). It contains lots of artifacts from the 40s, lots of information about how Jews were treated in the old Czechoslovakia, and about their ultimate fates. Terezin was not an extermination camp in itself, it served mainly as a transit camp before the Jews were sent off to places like Auschwitz and Treblinka. In all, I think about 140.000 people went through there, and most of them never returned - more than 30.000 died in the camp. A cruel twist to the story, is that Terezin was presented to Red Cross inspectors as a "model camp", to show how humanely the Jews were treated.

After the museum proper, I went to a different section, just a short walk down the street. This place was an old army barracks which contained numerous examples of Jewish art, music and literature. As with the first museum, things were well marked in English, but I found this second museum to be too specialized, and quite frankly pretty boring unless one happens to have a special interest in Czech-Jewish culture.

I had planned to go to a small town just north, to see some more sights and lunch at a recommended restaurant. However, I was told that there weren't any late buses back from this town, so I decided to just stay in Terezin. After the usual hearty, meaty Czech lunch, I dragged my bloated self down to the old Fortress. Built as a military installation in the late 18th century, it had served as a prison for most of its existence. It had an interesting exhibition about its military history and the story behind the construction of the fortified city. To my great surprise I also saw the name of Gavrilo Princip listed as a prisoner there. I asked some of the guides, and they not only confirmed he'd been taken there, but also told me he'd died there, but that his body had been taken back to Sarajevo.

The fortress was also used as a prison by the Nazis, and there were still remnants like an "Arbeit Macht Frei" slogan painted on a wall. Outside, there's a big memorial ground, with a cross and a big Star of David, with plaques to commemorate those who died at the prison in the 40s. It's quite an unpleasant feeling to walk around in the narrow, damp cells even today, and it doesn't get any better when you think about what's been going on there.

After taking some pictures of Princip's cell, I went to the museum shop, which seemed surprisingly small. I bought a couple of postcards and a Star of David tie clip (not sure why, I wear ties less than once a year on average). Then I went back to town to wait for the bus back to Prague.

And what a good idea that turned out to be. I hadn't bought any return ticket, hence I had no reserved seat. I was fortunate enough to be early, and smart enough to line up early too. The bus was even fuller than it had been in the morning, and I think I managed to grab the last or second to last seat. Sadly, the cosmic punishment was swift and harsh. I did avoid standing for more than an hour, but the body odor from the two assholes in front of me was so strong that I was forced to sit with my head in the strong draft from the window, and I think this was what caused me to come down with a strong headcold two days later.

Oblivious to my coming predicaments I ended the day with a big ole dinner at the Corso. The English couple from last night had just sat down when I came in, and this time they even invited me to join them. A good time was had all round, I think. Later, at the hotel I had a good time with some old buddies from my stay there in March, including a Welsh bartender and the Israeli guy who's one of the managers there. During the night I was glorified by a bunch of Canadians when I played their national anthem on my computer after they'd beaten some Brits in a hard won match of fussball, but the glory quickly disappeared when I started singing "Blame Canada" two minutes later. Again, good fun was had by all!