The Small Fortress is an important feature of the Terezín town. It was built together with the whole fortress at the end of the 18th century. Since 1994, there has been a permanent exhibition about the history of the police prison.
The history of the prison is not connected with the Small Fortress only because of World War II. Already in the 19th century there was a jail for political prisoners. In 1918, Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated František Ferdinand d’Este’s, died in the prison.
Starting in 1940, it was the infamous seat of the Prague Gestapo prison. About 32.000 prisoners went through the barracks of the Small Fortress. Executions, starvation, inhuman treatment and typhus epidemics caused the deaths of 2.600 people. But even when people survived the hell of Terezín, their suffering was not over. The Terezín prison was just a transfer station to other prisons, jails, and concentration camps in the Germany-occupied countries.
The violence was not just within the Small Fortress walls. In 1941, the whole Terezín town became a ghetto: an internment and transfer camp, where Nazis gathered Jews. It’s where thousands of people set off for their last journey – into extermination camps. Before the end of the war, more than 150.000 thousand people were transported to Terezín. Starvation, epidemics and terrible conditions caused death of 35.000 people directly in Terezín.
Contact
Address
Památník Terezín, státní příspěvková organizace
Principova alej 304
Telephone contact
+420 604 241 179
E-mail
pamatnik@pamatnik-terezin.cz
Web page
www.pamatnik-terezin.cz