At the end of November 1941, the Nazis built a concentration camp for Jews in the main fortress at Terezín, known as the Theresienstadt Ghetto. On 4th December 1941, the fi rst Jews were transported there. By the end of the war, 140,000 people had passed through the ghetto, 33,000 of whom died in Terezín while 87,000 were transported to extermination camps in the east.
Why is it important to remember the date 4. 12. 1941 all the time? Because it is necessary to remember where the division of society into fi rst and second class people can lead. We witnessed this several times in the Czech country over the last century. The reasons were various: ethnic, racial, class or political. When politicians add populism and the proclamation of collective guilt, the majority of public opinion concentrates into simple slogans. That was how the public labelled Gypsies (“They steal our hens”), Jews (“They killed Jesus”), Sudeten or other Germans (“They collaborated with the Nazis, they betrayed us”), people with the wrong non-working class origin (“They exploited us”) or dissidents (“They subvert our republic”). The fi rst category people are those who nod in agreement with the regime, but what do you do about the other ones? The moderates suggest integration into the mainstream of prevailing opinion and practice. The radicals enforce isolation, for example moving them to empty fl ats, to the outskirts of town and ghettos. The extremists can see the solution in liquidation. In interwar Germany, public opinion was radicalised as anti- Semitic exactly as in these three stages. And today, during the European migration crisis, it seems as if something from such intolerance emerged again. This is also the reason why remembering Terezín is still relevant today.
Aleš Krejčí
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Váš záznam bude z databáze Vydavatelstvím KAM po Česku s.r.o. vymazán neprodleně, nejpozději však v zákonné lhůtě.
