Reflections on Terezin - A Chamber Trip Story

Contributed by Beth Van Der Burgt

When you first enter the concentration camp at Terezin in the Czech Republic, there is a phrase on the wall. “Arbeit Macht Frei”. It means Work sets you Free. Literally, it means work will keep you alive. Being of German heritage, my grandfather taught me that if you are a good worker, you will reap the rewards of success. How sad that for some Jews in the 1940s that being a good, hard worker would just barely keep you alive.

TEREZIN was a concentration camp 30 miles north of Prague in the Czech Republic during World War II. It was originally a holiday resort reserved for Czech nobility. Terezín is situated within the walls of the famed Theresienstadt fortress, which was constructed by Emperor Joseph II of Austria in the late 18th century and named in honor of his mother, Empress Maria Theresa. The Nazis repurposed a fortress originally meant for protection that was never used in that manner for a concentration camp. This camp was not an extermination camp. However, many were transferred out to one of the extermination camps. Those killed at Terezin were either shot or hanged. 

You might ask why someone would even want to visit a concentration camp. It does have a definite and lasting effect on a person visiting. The description before our visit did mention this. Also, having previously visited Pearl Harbor, I thought I could handle it. However, what occurred there was much worse than I could have ever imagined in my head prior to an actual visit.

As you walk to enter the buildings, you pass by a cemetery of graves. Each grave has a red rose bush next to it. Some graves have names and some just numbers, and the Christians and Jews are separated. Again, the reason for visiting is to actually see what transpired there. When learning history in the United States about WWII, we only saw pictures in books and it actually seemed surreal. The pictures looked terrible. However, it is much worse when you stand in a cell meant for 30 people that harbored 100.

Moreover, seeing a camp in person is a different story. It is and was a very real and terrible action in our world's history. I always thought the Nazis were bad people. But now I know they were despicable, and the holocaust was a premeditated, planned action executed by many terrible people.

 I was a good student of history. Yet, I missed a few of the facts that our guide pointed out. Or these facts were not included. First, they traced back everyone’s heritage for 3 generations. If you had anyone Jewish in that lineage, you were considered a Jew and would be sent to a camp. Second, if you were not Jewish but married to a Jewish person, a divorce was required, and your Jewish spouse was sent to a camp while you struggled alone to provide and care for your family. And thirdly, the Nazis had Jewish “managers” at Terezin who decided who went on the transports to the extermination camps. Additionally, the unknown with this was that these managers thought they were sending their friends to a better place, and they didn't know it was an extermination camp.

 At the end of our tour, we watched a propaganda film made for a proposed Red Cross visit to Terezín that was later discovered. It depicted Jews living in an ok situation, showing how the Nazis were caring for them in a positive light. They were dressed nicely and shown playing games and smiling all the while, but most didn't make it to their next destination when they were transferred to another camp.

After visiting a camp like this, it takes some time to process what happened there. How could one group of people want to inflict such terrible acts upon another? The conditions at the camp were appalling. What the Nazis inflicted upon the Jews was horrific. Even if you do not care for another human being, it is improper to inflict such conditions upon that person.

Another place we visited was a Benedictine Abby in Melk, Germany. In the first courtyard, there are four frescos above the buildings of the cardinal virtues: prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. Our guide, who is a senior in high school at the Abby, pointed these out to us. The virtue that stuck out to me is that of justice.
St. Thomas Aquinas defines the virtue of justice as having two features. First, we must give God his due, and secondly, we must give man his due. As I walked through the courtyard, it struck me that the Nazis who carried out the deplorable acts against the Jews were not acting justly at all. Thus, they didn’t give the Jews their due since they withheld a proper existence in the world.
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Lastly, as many places across Europe and our world celebrate 80 years since the end of World War II, let us never forget the atrocities that the Jews endured. It must be a lesson to us all about how not to act in the world. I feel blessed and lucky to have been born and live in a great place in America, where I experience freedom each and every day. I might disagree with something or someone, but it would never cause me to want to harm them physically. The visit to Terezín has affected me immensely and will stay with me for the rest of my life. I am so glad that I can work to achieve my goals in life and not just work to save my life from torture and death.