Terezin Part III

Anyway we got to the Small Fortress. The Small Fortress was a bit different to the town in that it served as a Gestapo prison, not just a ghetto. So there were all sorts of other people there – enemies of the Reich, resistance fighters, illegal communists and other such ‘undesirables’. During World War II, 32,000 inmates including 5,000 women went through the Fortress. We walked past the many headstones, the huge crucifix and the Star of David and in the front entrance, with its black and white striped archway. We were given a ‘program’ sort of thing – a little brochure with a suggested route through the Fortress. We started in the Administration Courtyard, which is adorned with the retrospectively ominous words “Arbeit Macht Frei” (work will make you free). There were little rooms off the courtyard where people were registered, made to strip and put on their prison garb, officers’ rooms, and a clothes store. There were cells where hundreds of people were crammed. There was a little ‘surgery’, and solitary confinement cells. Whoa brother. 8 seconds in one of those was plenty for me, thanks. There was a bathroom and delousing room which – because it was just a room with showers in it – looked exactly like an Auschwitz gas chamber. Creepy. There was also a Hospital block which was set up late in the war, somewhat in response to the typhus epidemic which swept through the prison in 1944. Here, imprisoned doctors and nurses were made to care for the sick.

The next part was one of the most horrible things I’ve ever experienced. The words ‘Underground Passage’ will usually inspire a faint sense of unease, but unfortunately we had no idea what was coming to us. Even the little warning placard at the entry of this tunnel warning us that it was half a kilometre long didn’t put us off. Turns out it should have. Turns out I am prone to FREAK OUT a bit in extremely long, bad-vibed, pitch-black-in-places underground tunnels haunted by the ghosts of thousands of murdered Jews. Oh cool.

Anyway that spat us out into daylight (freakin FINALLY) into the execution ground. There was a set of primitive looking gallows, and a patch of grass against a wall which I had seen a number of times in photographs of people being shot in the head. This was not a good feeling, and we continued on through the little wall leading to what was at one point a mass grave, where about 600 bodies had been exhumed and relocated to the cemetery after the war. Strangely, though, this are was so beautiful. It was surrounded by the rich dark orange brick walls, and it was lush and green. There was a stream running through it, in which there were lots of frogs and fish, either dead or frozen (or both?) in a state of suspended animation in the freezing water. It was so completely strange. There were these two frogs sort of facing eachother and with their arms and legs spread, and they looked like a photograph of two frogs ballroom dancing. I would say that Will got a stick and poked them, but unfortunately that was me. There is photographic evidence.

Anyway we then turned left and walked through another arched gateway, which is called ‘The Gate of Death’, where prisoners had to walk on their way to the place of execution. Directly on the other side of the Gate of Death was a swimming pool for the guards and their families, and a cinema built for their entertainment. Less that 20 metres from the execution ground and mass grave. What must the children of those guards have seen? Imagine the sights, sounds and smells of life surrounded by so much murder, in which their daddies were partaking! It’s unthinkable. Anyway we went into the little cinema, which was so cute. All wood panelled and quaint and charming, which of course made it 50 times more horrible. Will and I of course exchanged half-assed jokes about finding out the session times for Brokeback Mountain, but our hearts weren’t in it.

It was getting late by this stage, and we had to hurry. We continued along our little self-tour to see more solitary confinement cells, a couple more courtyards, and then the huge Fourth Courtyard, which I had seen many pictures of, fully equipped with its ‘warning gallows’. And was it just our imaginations, or did there appear to be a smattering of bullet holes at head and chest height on the wall in the far corner of the Courtyard? After 3 people tried to escape from cell 38 in March 1945, one of them and two other men and a woman selected at random were executed as a warning to others who would attempt to escape. The other two would-be escapers were caught and stoned to death in the first courtyard.

We then saw a museum of artefacts belonging to the SS and Gestapo, which finished off with some photographs of hangings of camp commanders. As we were looking at them, a little old lady sidled up to us and pointed out that those executions had happened just outside the window over there.

All in all it was horrific. The town was freezing cold, sad, lonely and all but deserted. Occasionally we would see three or four young children walking down the street together dressed in brightly coloured parkas and scarves, and we would ask ourselves how their parents could possibly live there. By the end of the day we both felt completely suffocated by the awfulness, and couldn’t wait to get back on the bus. We got back to Prague and had a meal together, and then had a couple of drinks with Neil before turning in for the night. I was (was?! AM!) still haunted by the feeling of the place. It is indescribable. I said to Will at one point that I had never been in a place that feels like it is actually God-forsaken. But this place certainly seemed to be. I don’t know about the theology of that idea, but there you.

I took heaps of photos, but I don’t have a digital camera! You will obviously be welcome to see them when I next am where you are.

If you have any questions or comments or anything please leave a comment!

Cheers

J x