Terezín ceremony to honor Nazi victims canceled for the first time

The remembrance act to honor the victims of the Nazi regime at the Terezín National Cemetery will not take place for the first time since 1946 this year, due to the epidemic situation and governmental restrictions. The spokesman of the Terezín Memorial, Tomáš Rieger, informed the Czech News Agency about this.

The Terezín ordeal takes place every year on the third Sunday in May, with up to five thousand people taking part in the ceremony. This year, the organizers moved the event due to the coronavirus epidemic to the 18th of October. In the summer, they decided that it would take place without public participation in order to comply with the limit of one thousand people per event. Due to the recent governmental measure banning, among other things, outdoor events with the expected participation of more than 20 people, the organizers have decided to cancel the act this year for good.

Between 1940 and 1945, the Nazis dragged over 200,000 prisoners from a number of European countries to the Prague Gestapo police prison in Terezín's Small Fortress, the Terezín Ghetto and the Litoměřice concentration camp. There are over two thousand individual graves and several pylons in the national museum, under which thousands more men, women and children are buried.