Welcome to the WWII Forums! Log in or Sign up to interact with the community.

Visit to Terezin

Discussion in 'Concentration, Death Camps and Crimes Against Huma' started by LRusso216, Sep 30, 2016.

  1. LRusso216

    LRusso216 Graybeard Staff Member

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2009
    Messages:
    14,288
    Likes Received:
    2,605
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    My sister visited Terezin. She sent me some pictures and a map. As soon as I can I'll post more.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. gtblackwell

    gtblackwell Member Emeritus

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2006
    Messages:
    2,271
    Likes Received:
    678
    Location:
    Auburn, Alabama, US
    Lou, please do, my pictures are on slides and stored away. When I took students to Europe, ostensibly to study architecture we also studied the history and cultures of places we visited. I took students there on two occasions and twice to Dachau, quite different places. Terenzenstadt, the infamous "model camp the SS cleaned up , decorated , even planted trees and flowers to impress the swiss Red Cross, in 1944, was usually a distribution center. Who could work and who was to be killed was decided there. In spite of that some 10,000 people are still buried there. It is within the walls of an earlier Vauban type border fortification. The SS built a village outside for troops, guards, and even the families thereof. They had schools, tennis courts,m a pool, a PX, etc. I could not get the image out of my mind of an officer living in the village , having breakfast with his family, sending his children off to school, kissing his wife goodbye then walking to work where he decides which inmates, including children were to be sent to Auschwitz -Birkenau to be murdered, then returning home that evening. Terizern is a very different kind of "camp".

    Gaines
     
  3. LRusso216

    LRusso216 Graybeard Staff Member

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2009
    Messages:
    14,288
    Likes Received:
    2,605
    Location:
    Pennsylvania

    Attached Files:

  4. LRusso216

    LRusso216 Graybeard Staff Member

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2009
    Messages:
    14,288
    Likes Received:
    2,605
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Still more.
     

    Attached Files:

  5. gtblackwell

    gtblackwell Member Emeritus

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2006
    Messages:
    2,271
    Likes Received:
    678
    Location:
    Auburn, Alabama, US
    Lou, thanks again. The history of children's art there is particularly touching. As part of their model camp charade they let a young woman, early 20's, teach art to the children, the "camp" furnishing materials. She was a graduate of the famous Bauhaus in Dessau, not that far away. She carefully collected their work, encouraged them to write poetry or prose and hid it. After the war and thanks to good SS recording keeping the work was formed and each one included the child;s name, their birthday, often their photograph, their art and any writings they might have done. Few were complete and the day they were killed , most at Auschwitz. The exhibit was professionally hung and well lit.

    It took me a few moments to understand what is was about and it was very hard to finish looking at the 40 or so presented. They were children or all that was left of them. The young art teacher was also sent to Auschwitz and died there. The exhibit was later moved to the Old Synagogue in Prague where I saw it again. It reaches far more people but does not have the impact, to me, it did at Terezin. Even my trips to Dachau did not make such a moving impression. It must have been the children.

    Gaines
     

Share This Page