Yesterday I got up relatively early for an excursion out of town to the Terezin Concentration Camp, hence the title.
I wasn't planning on going to a concentration camp here, since I am planning on going to Auschwitz in Poland (and I have been to the Sachsenhausen Concentration camp near Berlin some years ago). But during the free tour, one lady mentioned that she had a read a book on the Terezin Concentration Camp. This camp does not have gas chambers, electric fence, etc. It was used as a "model" camp, for the German's to show the world how well they we're treating the Jews. The International Red Cross even visited the camp. Propaganda films we're made showing the Jews in sports leagues, theater productions, etc. Of course this was all for show-but what the lady told me piqued my interest enough to check out the camp.
So I awoke early to ensure I got to the tour, and found myself lucky-I was still able to eat breakfast at the hostel, (usually starts at 9, but they had it out at 8:45, of my favorite cereal of granola and strawberries). I made it to the tour point at 9:45.
At 10:00 we left for the camp. The leader was a British girl who talked and walked really fast. As a matter of fact, on the way to the train station to the camp, out of the 19 members of the group, she lost 10. They just couldn't walk fast enough to follow her. (I was one of those able to keep up). We we're told to wait for her while the panicked leader looked for the rest of the group, which she somehow found.
Eventually we made it to the train station-it was a rather long walk nobody was really prepared for. The train was made of separate compartments. I was seated with an Indian guy from the group, who was going to college in Poland but traveling around Europe. There we're some others in the compartment who weren't affiliated with the group. Our conversation waned after about 5 minutes.
After an hour on the train, we reached a bus which took us to the camp. We saw the crematorium, where bodies are cremated, and also several museums. One showed us the bits and pieces of the original propaganda film interspersed with facts about deaths in the holocaust. Another showed poems, drawings, and plays created in the concentration camp. Apparently, this was the camp that many talented/well known Jews we're thrown in-and those with talents in the arts used those talents, largely to assist the Nazis. Artists we're not allowed to draw pictures of misery though-those people we're sent east to the death camps at Auchwitz.
The tour guide was a fountain of facts and figures about the camp, and she kept spitting them out. She walked and talked real fast around the camp. She didn't seem to respond well to questions, though. She either didn't know the answer, or if it was something she previously addressed she would answer but snap at whomever asked that she previosuly addressed it. The camp wasn't particularly sad but somewhat interesting. We we're rushed through the camp and museum to catch the train back to town.
After this, I was sort of tired, but instead went to a shopping mall to have dinner ( I didn't have lunch, and it was around 6 pm). I actually had two dinners, first I had some tuna salad at a seafood chain, and then salmon over noodles at a fast-food Chinese place. I then walked to the river, and decided to go to a park overlooking the river. The first path I was alone on, except for a trail where a few rats we're scurrying in front of me. I decided to go down a different path-and I did. This one led me to the castle I saw yesterday. I walked down the hill, past crowds, of tourists, entertainers and back over the pedestrian only Charles bridge. From here, I took the metro back to the hostel.
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