On a trip to Prague in November 2001 with my wife, we by chance visited Terezin (the present name for Theresienstadt). I was totally unprepared for the impression it left with me. My knowledge of concentration camps was either from old black and white films or as enclosed grassy areas, abstract and geometrical arrangements, representations of mass graves.
Terezin, though, was different. I walked through the run-down streets and houses, shops and schools of a sleepy small town, typical of Eastern Europe. After the Nazi invasion, everything appeared to have returned to its former state. The population had, quite pragmatically, returned to their old houses - houses in which tens of thousands had died, in which countless Jews had died of starvation and been tortured.
When I got back home, I did some research into the memoirs of survivors and found that I, like the victims then, approached and saw the town in a similar way - the only difference being that I, as a tourist, could get up and leave at any time. Recollections from victims of those times reflect this approach to the town and then how it changes. To begin with, these recollections for the most part are descriptive, observing the town almost at a distance .An initial disbelief, in the face of the misery and hopelessness but also in face of the "staged rehearsals" forced on the inmates - as after all, Theresienstadt was the "showcase" concentration camp for world-wide publicity - turns to horror and despair and culminates in the unconceivable horror of deportation to Ausschwitz.
Through juxtaposing photos of street scenes in Terezin with recollections about Theresienstadt, I am attempting to show this town in a true light, which I feel has become lost through its use today - and, in turn,to pay respect to its victims.