Since March 2021, IWalk mobile application entitled Ghetto in Terezín has been available in virtual space to visitors of the former Terezín Ghetto and to history buffs. It is focused on several selected aspects of life in the wartime camp in the years 1941– 1945: the first Ghetto inmates, executions, health care, and the Ghetto´s propaganda role abused by the Nazis.
IWalk application may be downloaded free of charge from Obchod Play (for OS Android) or from AppStore (for OS iOS).
IWalk is a mobile application with an international coverage. Seen in this light, it is first necessary to go to the basic offer to find the country in which you are staying or which you would like to visit. There are several localities in the Czech Republic featured in the IWalks application. That is why you can follow the fates of Jews from Ostrava, Přívoz, Pilsen or Uherský Brod, share the atmosphere of Prague´s Radiotrh, an assembly point for people called up for transports, and newly Terezín, too.
And what does the IWalk application for the former Terezín Ghetto offer to ordinary users? Well, you will find information on the history of the Ghetto and on another five localities you can visit with the application in Terezín. You can get to the individual places by using a map attached to the program. Apart from short texts, each sightseeing stop offers video testimonies of Holocaust survivors – former Terezín Ghetto prisoners whose recollections add to and enrich listener´s experience of the given locality and its history.
Though destined primarily for broader public, the application is also known to offer sizable educational potential for work with schoolchildren. Didactically provoking questions, linking up to the Holocaust survivors´ testimonies, motivate young users towards more thorough contemplation and critical thinking, while often failing to produce unequivocal answers, which only stimulates further useful discussions. If a teacher decides to use the application (not only) during a visit to Terezín he or she can get a good picture of the answers, opinions or standpoints of the pupils thanks to the application´s digital technology: pupils or students are free to write in their replies to teacher´s queries and send them off.
But a virtual sightseeing tour of the places connected with Jewish persecution during World War II need not be only a collective experience; it may be enjoyed individually as well. It may be also used for private, for instance family, visits to Terezín. The application can also be opened either at home or at school. However, its greatest impact can be definitely ensured on the site being discussed and directly connected with the main theme of the application.
Available in a Czech and English version, IWalks for Terezín are destined for the age category 14+; the application´s duration is approximately 60 minutes.
Based on documents of the Terezín Memorial´s Department of Education
