We are planning on taking a day trip from Prague to Terezin and are seeking some guidance as to how best to approach it. We are not sure if we should take a group tour, a private tour or do it on our own. We are seasoned travelers but have never been to the Czech Republic. If you suggest a tour we would appreciate some recommendations as to a tour company.
Thanks
pretty easy to do on your own,i will get back to you with details later as I am just heading to work.i would however suggest a group tour as they will have all the history of the place and Whittman are the best known for doing these tours from Prague but many other companies also do tours.
Be aware that Terezin covers a large area and there is a lot of walking around.Most people see it as just a concentration camp and the tours as well as the information available mainly concentrate on that but the whole area has a history going back around 200 years and a great deal of this is totally ignored.
The cheapest would be to do it on your own. How? Everything is in Rick Steves book: Prague & the Czech Republic under chapter Terezin including website for bus and train schedule. Group tour is more expensive but is easier and everything is taken care of. I never took one. You can find plenty on google. Also http://www.pragueexperience.com does it. Private tour will be the most expensive but most convenient and you will learn the most.
Terezin is easily reached by public transport.
Take the bus from Platform 7 at the bus station at Nádraží Holešovice. The first bus is at 09:30, followed by a bus at 10:30 and 11:00. The bus takes 50 minutes to get there and it costs 85czk. You buy your ticket on the bus.
Buses return to Prague at 13:05, 15:05 and 16:05. The schedule will give you ample time to visit the Small Fortress, the memorial and the town itself. The staff of the Small Fortress usually provide you with an English-language tour as part of your admission.
Terezin is the not the type of place in which people wish to linger.
Just be aware that Terezin feels a bit sanitized when comparing to places such as Dachau - Terezin was built as a "model" camp to display to the world. You can also hire a guide from www.toursbylocals.com to visit the place.
Terezin was not built as a model camp. the camp was there It was a garrison town for the Army and used as such for a long time before the German authorities decided to use it as a Concentration camp and then made propaganda films there
A note on Terezin:
Terezin, or Theresienstadt, was built between 1780 and 1790 by the Austrian Emperor Josef II and named in honour of his mother, Maria Theresia. It is a massive, star-shaped garrison town, built in northern Bohemia by the Austrians, in order to keep the Prussians out. Ironically the Nazis, almost two centuries later, realised that the walls, designed to keep a German army out, could also keep a non-German civilian population in.
Terezin was neither a model camp nor a concentration camp. The dubious honour of the first concentration camp goes to Dachau, whereas Sachsenhausen served as the so-called model camp. Instead, Terezin functioned as a transportation hub, through which the Jewish populations of Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium were processed. Initially, Terezin was billed as a spa town, to which the Jewish populations of the occupied lands would be relocated. The Nazis did make a propaganda movie there, entitled The Fuhrer Gifts the Jews a Town, but the Nazi censors picked up on certain subversive tropes within the movie and it was never shown.
Whereas Terezin did do not have the same apparatus of mass murder that developed further east, it did ultimately became a routing centre for transports to the death facilities in the east - Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz, amongst others. Then, after of the war, Terezin was used as a detention centre for many ethnic Germans, who lost their Czechoslovak citizenship and we expelled from the country during the period of post-war ethnic cleansing instigated by the Beneš Decrees.
Terezin today is a very depressed place. It was built as a model military town and in its day was a marvel of eighteenth century planning, engineering and ingenuity. However, its use as a place of incarceration by successive regimes in the 1940s has scarred the town. Today it is strangely forlorn, near-abandoned and futureless. Most visitors cannot leave the place quickly enough.
For further reading, Terezin features prominently in W.G. Sebald's masterful novel Austerlitz. Also, a good introduction to it can found in Madeline Albright's intriguing A Prague Winter: A personal story of remembrance and war, 1937 - 1948 which follows the dual narratives of her family (who were sent to Terezin) and the broader political developments in Prague before, during and after the Nazi occupation.
In late August 2015, we toured Terezin, with Helena Katzlingerova-Rakytkova ('Helen') of Wittmann Tours . Although I had previously taken this tour with Wittmann (but not with Helen) 8 years prior, my wife wanted to visit Terezin, so we signed up for a group tour. Unfortunately for Wittmann - but fortunately for us - we were the only two persons on the tour that day, so it was essentially a private tour. However, for this we did have to pay extra, which was made known to me up front, so it was not an issue at all. Wittmann does not commit to the group tour of Terezin without at least three persons confirmed, plus besides Helen there was a driver of the van; so I did not consider the added cost to be unreasonable. And Helen, who has been guiding for Wittmann since its inception over 20 years ago, gave a fantastic tour! In fact, we went to places that I did not see on the previous tour, such as inside the walls of the Small Fortress. Helen is extremely knowledgeable about Terezin and has personal ties to a survivor, about whom she and her husband wrote a book (Life Forbidden, by Jan Rakytka - about Prof. Felix Kolmer), which I purchased along with several other books at the Museum shop. I don't think one can say that he or she 'enjoyed' a visit to a former concentration camp, so I will say that it was extremely informative, historical, thought-provoking, personal, and sad when one realizes that most of the Terezin prisoners did not survive the war. If you are interested in a visit to Terezin with Wittmann tours, try to take the tour with Helen. I also second Marcus's recommendation of Madeline Albright's book.
Thank you all for your helpful and informative responses.
I went to Terezin last fall, having taken a tour through Viator. They provided a private bus (I needed someplace to keep my carry on bag) with a tour guide. At the small fortress, we had a Concentration camp guide, who was excellent and very intense. I tried to go with guide Pavel Batel, as he had terrific reviews, but he was already booked.
Marcus is correct in his assessment of Terezin.. Originally, Joseph II had it built and named it after his mother, ie, Theresienstadt. It was designed to function as a "Garnissonstadt, " of which there were plenty in Central Europe depending on their location. Before the Nazi authorities used it as a "showpiece" and a " Durchgangslager" transit camp), Theresienstadt held the assassin of Franz Ferdinand, who was already had terminal TB at the time of the assassination in 1914. Basically, Theresienstadt had a long history prior to its function in WW2.
I took the bus on my own, very easy. I got off at the fortress, spent a lot of time there (with hindsight, too much), then walked about a kilometer to the walled town. It was an easy walk and part of it was along the wall, giving me a better idea of the site. I would have liked more time in the town to visit the various museums/exhibits, which I found very interesting. Then it was very easy to find the bus stop back to Prague. Pay the driver when you board.
At the fortress, they offered a guided tour. I skipped it, but someone else opted for it. I found the written explanations to be more than sufficient and preferred to wander on my own.
