Day Trips to Terezin from Prague

Travelling is the best way to see things from new points of view. And I believe that beyond consumer tourism we should travel in order to better understand an increasingly complex world. Terezín was a Jewish ghetto and concentration camp where around 35,000 Jews were exterminated.

For an excursion to the Terezín concentration camp from Prague, you have three quite different options, so you can tailor the experience to your liking:

This is the most popularoption for people travelling to Prague. You will travel with a professional guide to the Terezín concentration camp and tour the interiors of this 18th century fortress converted into prisons and barracks. You will be able to visit the museum that exists today, the crematorium, and the cemetery and see first-hand the living conditions of the Jewish people there.

I would definitely recommend this guided tour to Terezín over organising your own trip for a number of reasons. You won't have to worry about how to get there, you won't have to worry about getting tickets, and above all you'll have a professional guide explaining everything you'll see. Please note that the maximum group size for this tour is 35 people.

Useful information

• Duration: 5 hours
• Recommended: If you want to visit Terezín but don't have much time to organise the tour on your own.

This experience is designed for people who are passionate about history in general and the events of World War II in particular. The tour begins with a tour of the entire Jewish quarter of Prague, before driving by minivan to the Terezín concentration camp. There you will tour all the visitable rooms, including the barracks, the prisons, the cemetery and the museum.

On your return to Prague, you will stop in Lydice, a town that also represents a black spot in the history of the Nazi regime. Razed to the ground in 1942 after the murder of an SS leader by two members of the Czech resistance against the German occupation, Lídice became a symbol of anti-Nazism during World War II.

Itinerary

useful information

• Duration: 7 hours
• Recommended: If you want to explore the main World War II related sites in the Prague area.

If you want to visit Terezín but don't feel like organising the tour on your own and don't like to be part of a large tour group, this private tour to the Terezín concentration camp is your best option.

You will be picked up at your hotel and driven back in a luxury car, after which you will be accompanied on a private tour of the concentration camp where you will see all the main points of interest with a personalised narration by an expert guide who you can ask all the questions you want.

Perhaps this is the great advantage of a private tour, the fact that you can talk to your guide at all times and ask him anything you can think of about the place you are going to visit. Of course you also have all the advantages of a typical organised tour, where you don't have to worry about entrance fees or how to get to and from Terezín.

The only disadvantage of this tour compared to the other two is that the duration is somewhat shorter, although if you are looking for a half-day experience because you are only spending a short time in Prague or want to spend your trip doing other things, this may be an advantage for you.

Useful information

• Duration: 6 hours
• Recommended: If you prefer to do your own sightseeing and not be part of a large group of tourists or if you are in a group of 4 or 5 people.

Crematorium

Although, in theory, Terezín was not an extermination camp and most prisoner deaths were declared natural deaths, the reality is that prisoners were cremated alive in the Terezín crematorium. Not en masse, and one at a time (as the columbarium, where the cremated remains of Jews were stored, shows), but it is known that many of the remains were not stored and were thrown into the Ohre River.

The Terezín crematorium is usually the last stop on the tour and is where you can see the cruelty of the place at its peak.

Small Fortress

This is the main section of the Terezín memorial, where you can see at first hand the terrible living conditions of the Jewish people crammed in here. You will pass through the arrival area, where prisoners left all their belongings and documents in exchange for overalls.

Other parts of the so-called Small Fortress include the hospital, with hardly any equipment, the cells where the prisoners lived, the morgue and the toilets.

Throughout the entire visit, there is something that accompanies you at all times: an uneasy feeling, almost a halo of derealisation, as if what you are visiting does not really exist. Terezín is a place that does not receive visitors well, and one need only imagine how it would receive those who went there to be prisoners.

Ghetto Museum

Less than a kilometre's walk from the Small Fortress is the Terezín museum, known as the Ghetto Museum. Housed in a former school, it houses a permanent exhibition about life in the concentration camp. You will see photos and drawings of children who lived in the concentration camp. For me, the hardest part of the visit.

Magdeburg Barracks

On a complete visit to Terezín, you will also see the barracks where the prisoners were crammed together, which today have been reconstructed to faithfully depict the living conditions there. Here you will also find art created by the prisoners, which convey in a very powerful way the sense of anguish of living in a concentration camp.

Even if you decide to visit Terezín on an organised tour, here is some useful information to help you plan your trip.

How to get to Terezín and how long it takes

All organised tours to Terezín from Prague include transport, either by van (for group tours) or by private car (private option). It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to reach Terezín by road from the city.

Opening hours and days

The Terezín concentration camp is open from 8:00 to 18:00 in summer, and until 16:00 in winter. It is open every day of the year except 24 December, when it is closed for Christmas Eve.

Best day of the week to visit Terezín

Being a popular place to visit, Terezín tends to have a fairly high concentration of tourists on any given day of the week. However, being a fairly large place, they won't really be overwhelming unless you visit the concentration camp on weekends, when crowds can be really uncomfortable. I recommend going on a Tuesday or Wednesday if you have a choice.

Best time of year to visit Terezín

Terezín's peak season tends to be in summer, coinciding with the high temperatures and as this is the time when most tourists visit Prague. If you have a choice (although this will of course depend on when you visit Prague) visit Terezín in May, June or September for better temperatures.

There is a cafeteria in the concentration camp itself where you can eat, but it is not at all recommended. To avoid wasting too much time going back and forth to Terezín from the concentration camp, I recommend that you take food in your backpack from Prague.

What should I take with me to Terezín concentration camp?

Although Terezín was not originally a concentration camp and served as a staging post for other extermination camps such as those in Poland, it was so overcrowded that living conditions were appalling and thousands of people died from disease, starvation and hard labour.

For this reason, Terezín was known as a ghetto in which Jews could live and work, and Nazi propaganda turned the place into a horrific theatre that was shown to the world to cover up the atrocities that were actually being committed by the regime. That's why, when you visit Terezín, you'll see children's playgrounds, cafés and shops.

If a trip to Terezín is anything to go by, it's to discover yet another layer of the genocidal complex that took place in Germany during its totalitarian era. Although you probably already know this, a visit to Terezín is an experience that can be overwhelming. Despite this, it can also be very enriching and is definitely worthwhile.

In case you're looking for more sightseeing from Prague, I've written a guide on Tours and excursions in Prague which will tell you what's worth visiting in addition to the Terezín concentration camp.