Commemorative ceremony marks 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Terezín ghetto

Top officials, WWII veterans and foreign diplomats attended a ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Terezín ghetto on Sunday. Among the participants were President Petr Pavel, Senate chair Miloš Vystrčil and Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

In her address, the speaker of the lower house said it is the moral duty of people to remember what happened at Terezín and to consistently fight against those who want to forget, distort history, belittle  or even deny the horrors of the Holocaust.

Also known as Theresienstadt, the 200-year-old fortress town was transformed by the Nazis into a camp where Jews from across Europe were massed until they could be transported to extermination camps. Between 1940 and 1945 over 155,000 prisoners entered its gates. Around 117,000 of them did not survive the war. Some 35,000 died in the camp itself of stress, hunger and atrocious living conditions.