Terezin and Jewish Quarter private tours

I am an artist and researcher interested in Terezin. We chose to visit Terezin Memorial with Pavel Batel as our tour guide. It was truly an exceptional experience that jumpstarted my art/research experience that would not have been as powerful had Pavel not been our tour guide. The breadth of his knowledge about Terezin and his passion for this place is amazing. We cannot recommend his tour highly enough!!!!

To call our guide to the Terezin Concentration Camp a “tour guide” would do Pavel Batel a great disservice. Pavel is so much more. A documentarian and author, Pavel has spoken to survivors and their families and reviewed primary materials not publicly available after the war. Pavel does not simply point out buildings and relay facts. Instead, he tells stories, physically embodying those he speaks of. We were beyond moved and I will carry Pavel’s stories with me, particularly those of Fredy Hirsh, an “angel” of Terezin who taught, guided and protected the children of the camp, the stories of the social experiments carried out at Terezin on a daily basis, psychological counterparts to Mengele’s medical atrocities, and the stories of the horrors of the fortress, which for Jews was a true death camp.

If any of my friends know a documentary filmmaker, please let them know a story is waiting here to be told. The world needs to hear Pavel, not just those few of us privileged enough to have his attention for a day.

Shalom! I was in Terezin four times during my two weeks stay in Prague. My family went through several concentration camps and spent almost a year in this unique ghetto. I was trying to find somebody who would bring the past back to me with real knowledge and details. I didn't have any luck with Auschwitz so I decided to use the time to research this place really well. I contacted numerous tour companies which offer private tours, used a few of them, and went there also on my own when I met up with state officials.
I joined an English-speaking group waiting for a local state guide who repeats basic facts on a 45 min walk in the Small fort at least five times a day with a fake British accent that is not easy to understand. That is what you get when you purchase the ticket—a little bit of the ghetto facts, fortification data, and information about famous prisoners of the Habsburgs. About the history of the Small fort during the Nazi regime you get a few sentences about Czech political prisoners and typhus. About Jews, you get almost nothing! I am sorry but what a waste of time! When you are looking for family details state archive offers nothing different from what you can find online!
Almost every tour company offers a tour to Terezin camp as one of their many tour options but only two groups in the Czech Republic are focused on an authentic Jewish heritage and history. Wittman and Terezin private tours. In all the other cases expect seasonal guides with basic knowledge but at extreme prices for a private tour! 380 EUR per person on a five-hour 'Lucy tour'? Really? 'Tour by locals' 600 USD per two people? Give me a break! If you are interested in a literally 'unforgettable' experience, contact the last one I tried on my journey "Terezin private tours" with Czech writer and historian Mr. Batel. All the glowing reviews you can read about him are more than correct. He is leading the Israeli documentary film about the forgotten stories of Terezin followed by a live entry in I24 News on Israeli Holocaust remembrance day - Yom HaShoah, wrote three novels, lectured at prestigious universities, and interviewed over fifty survivors yet he is so modest. I decided to promote this kind and passionate man everywhere I can from now on. He gave me an almost ten-hour tour without watching the clock for half of the price the 'others' are asking! What else to say? Thank you, Pavel, for your dedication to our history! Baruch Hashem...

I heartily agree with the recommendations for Pavel Batel's Terezin tour. My husband and I spent 7 hours with him earlier this Sept. and heard the most compelling stories. He never used notes and seemed to talk nonstop with unflagging energy. Unforgettable.
Jason Holt gave us a wonderful 4-hour walking tour in Prague. He's excellent and will tailor a tour to your interests. Another high recommendation.

Julie, thank you and others who recommended Pavel Patel’s tour of Terezin. We were honored to take his tour in September 2019. We also did the private Jewish Quarter tour with Yvonne Weisgrab. Both of them are remarkable. We have done many Jewish tours throughout Europe and these tours were the best. We also did a tour with Jason from Living Prague. He is wonderful as well, and would highly recommend his tours. Prague is fortunate to have these dedicated, knowledgeable, kind individuals. I agree, we could do it again!

We took a small group tour (5 people) to Terezin with Pavel Batel in early September, 2022. This was one of the most outstanding tours we have ever taken. Pavel is incredibly passionate and his deep knowledge of the subject comes from many years of research. He is a historian and a novelist who is a storyteller at heart. The stories he told were as if relayed to us by the survivors, such was his keen insight and detailed, encyclopedic knowledge of the history of Terezin. We cannot find enough superlatives to describe this journey with Pavel Batel. It was phenomenal.

I could not be more pleased with my tour of Terezin with Pavel Batel. Pavel made commutations easy with email, and when he picked me up at the hotel to start the day. He was professional, kind and well prepared. No question went unanswered. He was clearly passionate about the subject matter. Pavel just didn't give us facts about that site, he told us stories of the people who were there during this terrible time. Not just stories he read in a book, but stories from victim's he personally interviewed. Pavel Batel is the best tour guide one could ever hope to have. I would definitely use him again and I highly recommend him.

My husband and I took a private tour of Terezin with Pavel Batel, and we could not have been more pleased with our choice. As someone who works in this field (I am employed at Yad Vashem and work as a guide in Israel and in Poland) and comes with a fair amount of background knowledge, I specifically sought out Pavel for his unparalleled wealth of knowledge and experience here.

Pavel's guidance was enriching and fascinating -- I cannot think of anyone better to tour Terezin with. He knows the ins and outs of the entire site and peppers the experience with firsthand accounts from survivors he has interviewed over his career. The tour provided both in-depth information for a more experienced visitor such as myself as well as to my husband who was learning about Terezin for the first time.

In addition to his professionalism and expertise, Pavel is also a great person to spend the day with easy-going, personable and it is evident he wants to ensure clients maximize their time at this important site. Cannot recommend highly enough.

In July, my wife and I confirmed a private Terezin tour in September with Pavel. In late August, Petra contacted us to ask if we'd be interested in changing to a small group tour which we declined. The day before our tour, Petra contacted us again to advise "due to unexpected events" Pavel would not be our guide but we would instead have Michael. While we were happy with MIchael, we couldn't help but wonder if we'd been bumped from Pavel's tour so he could guide a larger group. Good tour though and recommend.

We took two private tours on back-to-back days in August 2022, the Prague Jewish Quarter Tour with Yvonne Weisgrab and the Terezin Ghetto/Concentration Camp Tour with Pavel Patel. First of all, and very important to point out, both Yvonne and Pavel are not just tour guides. They are each active historians, well-versed in the details of their respective areas of expertise, continually incorporating new discoveries into their vast knowledge. Furthermore, Terezin is an important part of Prague Jewish history and vice-versa. In constant communication, they share new information they obtain with one another, further enhancing each other’s knowledge. Having toured with both of them, we witnessed this first hand. There were times during Yvonne’s tour where she started to reference information regarding Terezin that she directed us to Pavel (the next day) for more extensive details. There were times during Pavel’s tour when he would speak of new discoveries that challenged previously accepted theories and prompting new ones, new theories which longtime historians were averse to accepting, and which the newer generation of historians (including Yvonne) would use to pave the way to a further/deeper understanding. This provided us with a balanced and comprehensive view of both old and new theories, satisfying our curiosities and quests for knowledge. My great grandparents were among the elderly Viennese Jews sent to Terezin in 1942. I had already read a couple of books and numerous articles on Terezin prior to visiting. However, as Terezin contained a complex society of prisoners, different groups of Jews from different areas sent there at different times, I found it difficult to get an as-close-as-possible understanding of my ancestors’ specific experience. My research on private tours and tour guides led me to Pavel whom, for reasons previously noted, I felt would be best-equipped to give me such an understanding. Pavel exceeded my expectations, filling in the gaps in my own research I was seeking to fill. He found documents specifically related to my great grandparents and was able to interpret the information on them. He knew where they lived, was able to use this information to understand that they each had jobs, provided insight based on this information why they survived as (surprisingly) long as they did in Terezin, and provided insight as to most likely why they were not deported further east to an extermination camp as so many of their peers were. His passion, knowledge, and energy were apparent throughout the day we spent with him, and he provided valuable information for me to complete the story of my family history that I otherwise would not have had. Though we had not originally planned to take the Jewish Quarter Tour with Yvonne, we decided to book that as well and were extremely glad we did. We learned things we didn’t expect, much of it supplementing the knowledge I was seeking about my ancestors. Yvonne’s approach and professional yet personal demeanor, along with her extensive and current knowledge, enabled us to grasp the details of information we weren’t originally planning to. Aside from the tours themselves, setting them up was easy. Petra Černá, the tour manager, was highly responsive to my numerous questions and other inquiries in the months leading up to our visit. I highly recommend both these tours.