Two kilometers from Litoměřice and 38 km from Teplice there is the small town of Terezin, a place with a dramatic fate.

The fortress was built in the 17th century. Its project was very advanced by the standards of its time. The advanced complex of buildings was named by Emperor Joseph II after Empress Maria Theresia, who was influential and remembered by contemporaries and future generations for her progressive reforms. The large-scale structure occupied almost 400 hectares and was suitable for housing an army of 60 thousand soldiers. There were enough reserves for autonomous life up to 3.5 months.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the fortress was a prison for political prisoners. However, this is not what made the name of the small town of Terezin famous.

The most terrible time for Terezin was in the 40s of the XX century. One of the first concentration camps appeared there with a harsh system, merciless to human lives.

The population was evicted from the town captured by the Nazis, and the historical fortress became a distribution camp for Jews from the Czech Republic, Austria, and Germany. Formally, it was not a concentration camp, but a Gestapo prison (in a Small fortress since June 1940) and a Jewish ghetto (in a Large fortress since November 1941). Under the guise of a shortage of labor, people were sent to another terrible place, Auschwitz. More than 140 thousand people were in Terezin. And by the end of the war, there were only 17 thousand survivors. The conditions were appalling. A crematorium was specially built for the dead.

Today, not everyone interested in the history of the 20th century will be determined to visit this place. A large-scale Memorial complex has been created in the town to preserve memory. It includes Small and Large fortresses with former barracks, a prayer house, a columbarium, and a Ghetto Museum.

The Museum of victims of the Holocaust on the territory of the former concentration camp displays items from the Second World War. There are exhibitions dedicated to the daily life of prisoners in the former Magdeburg barracks, where special departments responsible for managing the camp operated during the ghetto days.

The Terezin Memorial is open to the public all year round: opening hours change during the summer and winter seasons.