We got up this morning in anticipation of going on a tour to Terezin, a concentration camp used by the Germans during World War II. After another filling breakfast we contacted the agency we made the tour through and found out that they didn’t have enough people to sign up, so their tour was canceled today. We talked to the front desk at the hotel and they knew of another tour. They called for us and booked it, but we had to hurry because the tour was leaving in about 20 minutes time.

We made it there after a wrong turn or two. Terezin is about an hour or so north of Prague. A tour van took us to Terezin. Terezin was built in the late 18th century as a fortification against the Prussians, but it was never used due to the Prussians not making advances in that direction. The place is divided into two sections. The first section is the small fortress. This was used for imprisoning people, not only Jews, but basically anyone who disagreed with the government for any other reason they saw fit. This concentration camp didn’t have any gas chambers, but so many people died here from other reasons. Seeing a concentration camp in person makes you really realize what people went through. They would literally have 600 prisoners in this fairly small room, I just can’t even visualize how that was even possible. The second section is the large fortress, this was the Jewish Ghetto. People who ended up here hoped it would be their last location and they could remain there for the rest of the war. However, people who passed through there would end up being transferred out to other concentration camps such as Auschwitz.

After the tour we were taken back to Wenceslas Square in Prague. We grabbed some really good sausage as an on the go food. We walked around for a bit before making our way back to the hotel room. We ended up grabbing a couple slices of pizza a few blocks down from our hotel room for dinner.

Tomorrow is our last day in Prague. We leave by train tomorrow afternoon for an all night ride to Cologne, Germany.