Yesterday I took the bus from Prague to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp. The camp is famous for its infamous role in Nazi propaganda films. Hitler portrayed Terezin to the world as an idyllic, hospitable village for its Jewish prisoners. The reality, of course, was far from the case. On the one occasion when the Red Cross was allowed to visit Terezin, the Nazis made the Jewish prisoners dress up in the costumes of everyday Czech life: bakers, candy shop owners, etc. The ruse worked, and the world remained fooled for several more years.
Two things struck me on my visit to Terezin. The first was perhaps unintentional, but in the middle of a former execution field there are fruit bearing trees. The pears were ripe for the picking, and on the ground yellow jackets swarmed around the fallen fruit:
The second, and for me the most disturbing modern aspect of Terezin was not the souvenir shop, I had expected the existence of such an oddity, but the cafe and restaurant. While the restaurant wasn’t a corporate establishment by any means, I still felt that its very existence poses a contradiction to the otherwise memorial atmosphere of the camp. Do tourists really need to eat… even in the middle of a concentration camp?
What do you think?