Shortly after the German Army entered Prague on March 15 1939, Hitler proclaimed the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Freedom and democracy, especially for Czech Jews, were dealt a fatal blow. Numerous and wide-ranging restrictions were proclaimed to impoverish and humiliate Jews, and in September 1941 all Jews over six years old were ordered to wear the yellow star, marking their isolation from the rest of society and signalling their imminent deportation to ghettos.

Illegal prayer meeting in the Warsaw ghetto

Theresienstadt, also known as Terezin, is situated 60 kilometres north of Prague. It was built in the 18th Century as a fortress town and named after Empress Maria Theresa. In 1941 the Nazis officially established Theresienstadt as a "labour ghetto" for the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia. Soon it became a "retirement ghetto" for the 'privileged' Jews of the German Reich. Later, the Nazis fraudulently presented Theresienstadt to the international community as a 'model Jewish settlement'. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Secrecy and deceit disguised its sinister purpose as a holding yard for the slaughterhouses of occupied Eastern Europe. Almost from the outset, the cattle wagons left Theresienstadt for the ghettos and extermination camps set up in Nazi-occupied territories.

The Jewish leadership in Theresienstadt made every effort to buffer the brutality of the Nazis, to ease the suffering of the inmates and to save as many people as possible. But they were essentially powerless. Jewish citizens from many European countries were trapped there, facing terror, starvation and disease. Nevertheless, transcending their pitiful existence, they nurtured and educated their children, cared for their sick, encouraged artistic endeavour and above all, retained their humanity.

Records show that approximately 140 000 Jews were deported to Theresienstadt. Their countries of origin were: 74 000 from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, 42 000 from Germany, 15 000 from Austria, 5000 from Holland, 1500 from Slovakia, 1200 from Poland, 1150 from Hungary and 500 from Denmark.

33 000 Jews perished in Theresienstadt and more than 88 000 were deported to other ghettos and extermination camps. Of those, fewer than 4000 survived. On May 8 1945, 17 000 inmates were liberated from Theresienstadt, which was the last major camp to be reached by the Allies. Of the approximately 10 000 children who had been incarcerated there, fewer than 300 under the age of 15 survived.