Terezín Concentration Camp Tour

Admission to all Terezín Memorial monuments and internal transport between the main areas is included in the price.

The tour is part by air-conditioned bus, part on foot.

After meeting your guide near Wenceslas Square in Prague, we board the bus for the trip to Terezín. The journey takes around 45 minutes.

Terezín originally served as an army garrison town. It was built at the end of the 18th century by Emperor Joseph II as an ingenious system of military fortresses.

In the 20th century, during World War II, the Nazis converted Terezín into a concentration camp and Jewish ghetto.

While it was mainly used to hold Jews from Czechoslovakia, tens of thousands of people were also deported to Terezín from Germany and Austria, and several hundred from the Netherlands and Denmark. This included 15,000 children.

(Many of these unfortunate people were subsequently transported on to Treblinka and Auschwitz by rail.)

Today, the whole site is known as the Terezín Memorial because much of it has been eerily preserved in its 1940s state.

On our tour of the Terezín Memorial monuments, the guide outlines the complicated history of events that unfolded at here. They also explain how Terezín differs both psychologically and physically from any of the 632 other camps established by the Nazis.

The Terezín Memorial is divided into two parts:

The Small Fortress (also known as the Prague Gestapo Prison) was the concentration camp. Around 90,000, mostly political prisoners passed through here, and we walk through the complex to see where they were housed.

The Big Fortress, comprising 80% of the Terezín Memorial, was the Jewish ghetto. Here we visit the Ghetto Museum (Terezín Museum), Columbarium, Prayer Room (Hidden Synagogue), Magdeburg Barracks exhibition, and the Jewish Cemetery Crematorium (cemetery is closed on Saturday). Around 32,000, mostly ordinary prisoners passed through here.

We walk through the prison dormitory, and see the belongings of the people who resided here - their actual clothing, poetry, musical instruments and music sheets, the children's drawings, and other precious artefacts that have survived.

Audio visual displays and documentary films feature archive material from the era.

The tour presents a harrowing insight into the lives of the inmates, their hopes, and ultimately, their despair.

This sorry episode in the history of Terezín, and of humanity in general, will no doubt leave unanswered questions in your mind as to how or why such atrocities occur.

For refreshments, the onsite kiosk stocks a limited range of snacks and drinks. But it is not always open, so we recommend bringing your own refreshments.

The trip finishes back in Prague, near Wenceslas Square.

Prague Experience sightseeing tours are led by licensed tourist guides and operate with modern, air-conditioned buses.

The tour is in English. If you require a tour in German, Italian, or Spanish, please state this in Special Requests on the booking form.

Note: Many inhabitants of Terezín were deported there from the Jewish Quarter in Prague. Therefore, to trace the origins of the Terezín story, in addition to the Terezín Tour you may also wish to book the Jewish Quarter Tour in Prague.

State your requirements in Special Requests on the booking form.