On This Day 81 Years Ago: The First Transport to Terezín Concentration Camp
It’s exactly 81 years since the first transport of Czechoslovak Jews left Prague, bound for the garrison town of Terezín, transformed by the Nazis into a ghetto and concentration camp. They were sent there to prepare the town for the arrival of thousands of others – Jews from all over occupied Europe – who were crammed into the squalid barracks, and when the 18th-century fortress could take no more, into the surrounding houses. Lodged in a fortress built between 1780 and 1790, it was presented by the Nazis as a “model” Jewish community, with some visits permitted from the Red Cross and other observers. However, most of the 80,000 Czech Jews who died in the Holocaust died in Terezin, and of the 144,000 Jews who passed through the camp, only 17,000 survived — including, by most estimates, fewer than 100 of 15,000 children. Terezin was a transport point to Auschwitz; 88,000 Terezin inmates were ultimately shipped there or to other death camps. Many artists, musicians and highly cultured Jews were confined in Terezin, and much of the art and culture that emerged from the Holocaust was created there, including some 4,000 drawings by children, many of which are on display...
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