Ceremony for Holocaust victims held

Around 1,000 visitors including Senate chairman Přemysl Sobotka, met at the National Cemetery at Terezín in northern Bohemia on Sunday for a commemoration service honouring those who died in the Holocaust. In the years 1941 to 1945 the Nazis forced 155,000 Jews from all over Europe into the Terezín ghetto. Of that number, 117,000 did not live to see the end of the war - the majority sent to Nazi extermination camps such as Auschwitz. Sunday’s ceremony came roughly a month after the cemetery was hit by theft: more than 800 bronze plaques were stolen in April, apparently for scrap metal. Damages have been estimated at 2.5 million crowns. Police apprehended a 29-year-old suspect in the case and are looking into whether there were other accomplices. The act of theft has led to a wave of solidarity from donors, including schools, hoping to raise money for the site.