History

In the late 18th century the Habsburg Monarchy erected the fortress near the confluence of the Labe and Ohre Rivers, and named it after Empress Maria Theresa. During the second half of the 19th century the fortress was used as a prison.

During World War I, the fortress was used as a prisoner-of-war camp. Many thousand supporters of Russia (Russophiles from Galicia and Bukovina) were placed by Austro-Hungarian authorities in the fortress. Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife, starting WW I, died there of tuberculosis in 1918.

During WWII, the Gestapo used Terezín, better known by the German name Theresienstadt, as a ghetto, concentrating Jews from Czechoslovakia, as well as many from Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark. Though it was not an extermination camp, of the over 150,000 Jews who arrived there, about 33,000 died in the ghetto itself, mostly because of the appalling conditions arising out of extreme population density. About 88,000 inhabitants were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. At the end of the war there were 17,247 survivors. Terezin was the home of Hana Brady and her brother George Brady from 1942-1944.

Part of the fortification, the Small Fortress, served as the largest Gestapo prison in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, separated from the ghetto. Around 90,000 people went through it, and 2,600 of those died there.

It was liberated on May 9th, 1945 by the Soviet Army.

After the German surrender the small fortress was used as an internment camp for ethnic Germans. The first prisoners arrived on the May 10, 1945. On February 29, 1948 the last German prisoners were released and the camp was officially closed. Among the interned Germans were former Nazis like Heinrich Jöckel, the former commander of Terezín and other SS members. There was also a large group of internees who were arrested simply because of their German nationality, among them young boys of 12 years and elderly people.

In the first phase of the camp lasting until July 1945 mortality was high due to diseases, malnutrition and incidents of simple outright murder. The commander of the camp in that period was Stanislav Franc, who had been a prisoner of the camp under the Nazis since 1944. He was guided by a spirit of revenge and tolerated any mistreatment of the prisoners by the guards.

In July 1945 the camp shifted under the control of the Czech ministry for domestic affairs. The new commander appointed was Otakar Kálal. From 1946 on the inmates were gradually transferred to Germany and Terezín more and more turned into a hub for the forced migration of Germans from the Czech lands into Germany proper.

After the war, Theresienstadt was resurrected as Terezín, dropping the German "stadt" from its name but still retaining a military garrison. The army left the city in 1996, which had a negative effect on the local economy. Terezín is still trying to decouple from its military past and become a modern, vibrant town. The city was damaged by floods in 2002.

The Museum

The museum in Terezin has a permanent exhibit of art done by the children who were interned there in WW II. The children were encouraged to paint by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, who was also interned in Terezin.