Terezín Small Fortress

by ElHefe

Concentration camp – Former Gestapo Prison

Political prisoners were both Jews and non-Jews of all nationalities.

Cemetery outside Small Fortress.

By the end of the war, the Small Fortress had processed more than 32,000 prisoners, 5,000 of them female. Political prisoners were predominantly Czech at first and later other nationalities: Soviet Union, Poland, Germany and Yugoslavia.

Most famous inmate was Gavrilo Princip, Serb nationalist who shot archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and touched off World War One.

Small Fortress was run by only one prison commander, SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Jöckel. He was greatly responsible for the terrible conditions within the prison, thus he was sentenced and executed in 1946.


Courtyard I consists of Blocks A and B and holds 17 mass cells.




This room was built as a men bathroom in case the International Red Cross decided to visit camp. There isn’t any plumbing installed.



Showers




Smaller cells used for solitary confinement


Trenches and low-lying areas around the fortress could be flooded for defensive purposes.

Gallows


Ghetto inhabitants between the ages of 16 and 60 had to work 52 to 54 hours per week, and from November of 1944, the time spent working skyrocketed to 70 hours per week.






Approximately 60 to 100 prisoners were housed in each one of these mass cells, giving each prisoner only 30 cm of room on the bunks. The proximity of the prisoners made it easy for the lice and fleas to hop from one prisoner to another, aiding the spread of disease.



















View pictures of nearby Terezín ghetto

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