A paved pathway leads to the reddish stone wall surrounding the prison, and you are confronted with a large arched entranceway that is painted with thick white and black stripes. Beyond the entrance is a gravel main courtyard with rows and rows of barracks. Inside the barracks are long hallways and bare prison cells, some with rows of wooden bunks for numerous occupants and others for solitary prisoners. Stepping into one of the solitary confinement cells was deeply disturbing. You find yourself in a tiny square shaped room with stone floor, walls, and a ceiling which rises high above you. High up on the wall is a long narrow window, too high for a person to see out of, except perhaps a patch of blue sky and light on sunny days. On the day I visited there was nothing visible from the window but dim gray light and clouds and within the cell was a sense of crushing bleakness. It seemed to me that this was a place that was meant to break human spirits and take away all hope. The feeling lingered with me as we wandered through the courtyard, in and out of barracks, and explored a tunnel that stretched for many meters beneath the grounds of the Small Fortress. And especially when I saw the words Arbeit Macht Frei painted above a prison gateway. The Nazis no doubt knew exactly what this place could do to a human spirit.

By the time I left the Small Fortress, the rain was pounding the buildings, roads and earth heavily and the dark gray sky reflected my mood on leaving the Small Fortress. I soon caught a bus back to Prague, and though I had been at Terezin for less than a day, its impact on me was profound. Above all, the voices of the artists echoed in my mind and wouldn’t let me go. At that time I did not yet know that sharing their stories would become a kind of mission for me. And I never dreamed that nearly four years later I would meet one of the few children who survived Terezin.

The Ghetto Museum is located in the main section of the town, known as the Big Fortress. After leaving the museum I took a walk around the town’s main square and down the side streets, lined with old buildings and barracks, most of them a tan color with reddish roofs. It was raining by this point, and few people were around. The people that I did see were mainly inhabitants of the town. Strange as it seemed to me, people do live in Terezin today. I wondered how they managed to go about their daily lives when the memories of those who were imprisoned here were so strong. Do they ever think about what happened here? Or do they go about their daily lives without reflecting on the history at all, with everyday struggles taking priority?

The other portion of town is called the Small Fortress, which was historically a jail for political prisoners. In 1940, the jail was taken over by the SS and was operated by Nazis for the remainder of the war. To get to the gates of the Small Fortress, you have to exit the main part of the complex, cross a bridge over the rushing river Ohre, and walk through vast Jewish and Christian cemeteries with unmarked gravestones. During World War II, the cemetery quickly filled up, and most of the 32, 500 prisoners who died in Terezin were not given a proper burial, but were sent to the crematorium at the far edge of the Big Fortress. On certain days, the crematorium can be viewed by the public, though it was closed when  I visited.

As I walked to the Small Fortress, cold rain began to fall and the streets were deserted. The utter desolation of the place chilled me, and its impact on me is perhaps best represented by a photograph that I took during the walk to the Small Fortress. A lone figure walks through the rain, crosses the wet stone pathway that cuts through the cemetery, with rows of graves stretching out endlessly. A plain cross can be seen far ahead, as can black trees whose bare branches seem to claw at the gray sky. And in the distance is a grayish stone wall, the barrier which once enclosed people inside the Small Fortress of Terezin.