Helena and Ivan Klimovi with the group of French teachers at the attic of the Magdeburg Barracs
Already for the second time a group of French teachers arrived in Terezin Memorial to learn about the history of Terezin repressive facilities from the time of the second world war.
There was a rich programme prepared for the teachers. The workshop was opened with a presentation on the history of the Terezin Memorial and information about actual educational activities of the Memorial. Historian Petr Koura then followed with his lecture, accompanied with a film projection, concerning the situation in the second Czechoslovak Republic after the occupation of the Sudetenland. Afterwards participants visited the former ghetto. In the next days, they attended lectures and workshops on religion in the Terezin ghetto and children and youth in the ghetto. They discussed issues associated with the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross which visited Terezin during the war. Historian Thomas Hejda focused his lecture on viewing the Terezin Memorial as a place of memory of our country.
A lecture and tour around the whole area of the Small Fortress drew also attention to learning more about the history of the former Gestapo police prison in the Small Fortress.
One of the most interesting moments of the workshop was a meeting with the writer Ivan Klima and his wife, Helena Klimova, who arrived in Terezin at the invitation of the French and engagingly talked about their lives. Ivan Klima was himself imprisoned as a small child in the Terezin ghetto, and Mrs. Helena survived the war as a hidden child.
The workshop took place not only on the grounds of the Terezin Memorial, but teachers also visited the Lidice Memorial, Prague’s Jewish Town and, accompanied by Thomas Hejda, completed a tour around places in Prague which are closely connected with the communist regime.
