"I had absolutely nothing in Litoměřice. We even had no mess tins. People lay on boards covered with straw; you just lay down as best as you could. It was terribly dirty there, I don’t know how those people could ever stand it."
- Karel Sapík, Recollection No. 442 -

The Small Fortress served as a prison of the Prague Gestapo for the opponents of Nazi regime in 1940 - 1945. 

Sightseeing route: 

• The guards offices and prison cells with partly former facility, showers, sick room, hospital, execution place.
• Part of the route is 500 m long corridor as the exposition of former fortification. The corridor wasn´t use during WWII.

Permanent exhibitions:

• The Small Fortress 1940-1945 - on the ground floor in the museum of the SF isdevoted to the history of the political prison; it bears witness to the persecution of the Czech nation under the Nazi regime during the Second World War, and records the fates of Czech prisoners transferred to other concentration camps within the Nazi German Reich.
• The Terezín Memorial art exhibition "Art against fascism and war" - picture gallery on the first floor of the museum, you can see it also in - videotour (in Czech with ENG subtitles)
• The prisoner's laundry - replica (III. prison yard)
• The Litoměřice Forced Labour Camp 1944-1945 - history of concentration camp in Litoměřice by underground factories Richard I and II (III. prison yard)
• Milada Horáková 1901-1950 - the resistence activity of Milada Horáková in WWII and conspiracy trial in 1950s (former prison hospital)
• Genocide of the Roma during II. WW - exhibition of the Museum of Romani Culture (will be shown until the end of 2023 in III. prison yard)
• The perpetrators of crimes. The SS Repressive Staff in Terezín and Litoměřice 1940 – 1945. (III. prison yard)
• The Internment Camp for Germans – the Small Fortress 1945-1948. (III. prison yard)

 Services for visitors:

• guided tours - menu
• contemporary exhibitons
• watching the short documentary film about history of the Small fortress in the cinema - it starts at 9:00, next every 30 minutes, in Czech with English subtitles
• souvenir and book shop
• refreshment (drink and food machines)
• ATM
• parking - for car/bus 200 m from the main gate, for bikes inside of the SF

The Ghetto museum was opened in the former town school in 1991. Within the WWII the home (heim L417) for Jewish boys (10 - 15 years old) was here.

Permanent exhibition:

• Memorial hall of children - the exhibition on the ground floor and mezzanine is dedicates to children of the ghetto (children names on the hall walls, their poems and drawings)
• Terezín in the Final Solution, 1941-1945 - the exhibiton on the first floor describes the begining of the persecution of protectorate Jews, establishment and life in the ghetto, transports to work and extermination camps

Another service for visitors:

• the electronic 3D model of the ghetto
• watching of documentary film about history of the Ghetto Terezín in the cinema - it starts at 9:00, next every 30 minutes
• short contemporary exhibitons in the cinema foyer
• souvenir and book shop
• refreshment (drink mashine)
• study room for rent
• without barriers

The Magdeburg barracks - former army barracks were used as a seat of Jewish self-goverment during the WWII.

Today it is used as a museum with extensive exhibitions about cultural activities of involuntary inhabitants of the ghetto and it follows up the exhibitons of the Ghetto museum.

Permanent exhibitions:

• Replica of a prison dormitory from the ghetto period - example of common accomodation
• Music in the Terezín ghetto - the importance of music for the life of the prisoners and the main personalities of the musical events in the ghetto, period posters
• Art in the Terezín ghetto - the works of the famous artists in the ghetto as well as works of a number of the other lesser-known artists
• Literary works in the Terezín ghetto - example of works of adults, youth and children
• Theatre in the Terezín ghetto - period posters for performances, replica of the theatre and costumes
• Truth and Lies. Filming in the Terezín ghetto 1942 – 1945 - the exhibition about shooting of propaganda films in the Terezín ghetto (yard of the barracks)

Another offers for visitors:

• refreshment - drink mashine
• without barriers

The columbarium was set up in the original fortification to store the cremated remains of thousands of victims of the ghetto and the prison in the Small fortress after the crematorium was built behind the town walls in 1942.

Permanent exhibition:

• Memory hall - possibility to hang up the memory desk on the wall
• Replica of the urns storage

The ceremoniall halls and central morgue were also set up in the original fortification on oposite site of the columbarium. To back part were brought dead bodies for last service. In front part were acted common ceremonies.

Permanent exhibition:

• Central mortuary and burial ceremonies in the ghetto - documentary period drawings and photos

The crematorium was built by ghetto prisoners by order of the SS commandery in October 1942. More then 30 000 corps of the victims of the ghetto, prison in the Small fortress and concentration camp in Litomerice were cremated here.

Permanent exhibitons:

• Mortality and burial in the ghetto - documentary period drawings and photos
• Four original furnaces, morgue and autopsy room 

The Jewish cemetery around the crematorium is symbolic cemetery. Dead bodies were exhumed and buried in front of the Smal fortress after the war. Into today form it was adapted many times till 1972.

Opening time - daily (except on Saturdays) summer time 10am - 5pm / winter time 10am - 4pm

Admission - single/combination

Address - Mestsky hrbitov 325, Terezin; GPS: 5050288,14.15167

Duration - approx. 20 min.

Parking - car/bus 200 m from the object

Without barriers

Historical overview

The prayer room was used for worshipping during the existence of the ghetto. In terms of decoration, namely its professionally rendered murals and texts, this is unique among all the similar premises used as prayer rooms in the former ghetto.

Replica of the attic - there were small rooms in the attics of residential and farm buildings in Terezin converted into emergency housings of a minimum size and providing a small group of prisoners with at least a little of privacy. In this case, it was undoubtedly a dwelling of craftsmen, who were concentrated in the building and worked in the nearby central ghetto workshops. Fortunately, this emergency residential space above the chapel was not rebuilt later on and could be turned back into a space similar to that of the ghetto times. That way visitors can get an idea about another possible accommodation in the overcrowded ghetto.

Transports - the exhibition is permanently closed.

Entrance is possible only with a guide to the Terezín Memorial by prior appointment at manager@pamatnik-terezin.cz. The exhibition can also be visited in our virtual tour - section For visitors → Virtual tour → on the map click on No. 5 Serious House)

Terezín transports - permanent exhibition in the former municipal weighing-house which focuses specifically on the transports, giving visitors a detailed insight into how this system functioned. The building containing the new exhibition is located where there used to be a railway line that played a key role in the transports, giving direct access to the ghetto. The exhibition explains the systems used by the Nazis when transporting Jews from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (and later from other Nazi-occupied territories) to the Terezín ghetto and when dispatching transports onwards from Terezín to the extermination, concentration and slave labour camps – especially to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Visitors can learn about the tragic history of the so-called evacuation transports that arrived in Terezín during the final months of the war, when other concentration camps were abandoned as the front moved gradually westwards and their prisoners were taken to Terezín. The exhibition also explores the repatriation of the Terezín inmates after their liberation at the end of the war.

The crematorium is not part of the regular sightseeing rout and is located in Litomerice - 7 km from Terezín Memorial. It is necessary to book the visit in advance in writing: manager@pamatnik-terezin.cz, accompanied by the guide of the Terezín Memorial.

The crematorium is possible to visit also virtually

Construction of the Nazi Underground Factories

During the last wartime years, when the German industry came under ever mounting pressure from Allied air-raids, the Nazis opted for decentralizing and transferring some of their arms manufacture into underground factories. A limestone quarry under the Bídnice plain near Litoměřice was selected as a site for German war production. Underground factories for the Auto-Union and Osram concerns began to be built in the spring of 1944. The project was codenamed Richard I (Elsabe factory) and Richard II (Kalkspat factory). However, production was launched only in the Elsabe plant. This manufactured components for the HL 230 Maybach engine, used during World War II in German heavy tanks (Panther, Tiger etc.).

Concentration Camp Litomerice

The Nazis set up a concentration camp, a branch of the Flossenbürg core camp, near the factories under construction. In the years 1944-1945, some 18,400 inmates passed through the camp, designated as the SS-Kommando B5. These prisoners were primarily from Poland, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Greece. Some four thousand Jews from different European countries constituted a large group among the prison population. During a single year, one in four inmates died due to slave labor and harsh living conditions. The Litoměřice camp, too, witnessed implementation of the Nazi program for liquidating prisoners, known as “Vernichtung durch Arbeit” (destruction by work).

Camp Crematorium

A former brickyard housed the camp´s crematorium built, between 1944 and 1945, by the German company Architekt Neumann. Two furnaces, designed to incinerate six bodies at a time, were installed in a space measuring 20 by 8 meters. Launched into operation in April 1945, the Crematorium incinerated some four hundred victims of the Litoměřice camp as well as 52 inmates, shot dead on May 2, 1945 during the last wartime execution in the Police Prison in Terezín. The furnaces in the Crematorium were heated by coke, brought in by train along a railway siding leading to the building site of the underground factories. A civilian employee, assigned at the order of a local labor office, served as a stoker. He was helped by six inmates from the camp.  

Based on the resolution of the Government of the Republic of Poland on the closure of all museums and cultural institutions, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is also closed from 7 to 29 November 2020!

The message of the Czech exhibition in Auschwitz is to show the mechanism of deportations from the former Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia to Auschwitz on the background of then situation in the country, above all in the context of the occupational politics of Nazi Germany.

Up-to-date information: http://auschwitz.org/en/ 

In 1993, the Terezín Memorial was commissioned to build and administer the Czech Republic’s official exhibitions abroad, namely in Ravensbrück and Oświęcim (Auschwitz). The exhibition in Ravensbrück was prepared and opened to the public in 1995.

Due to reconstruction of the building the national exhibition of the Czech Republic will be closed until further notice.