Private firm to guard cemetery at Terezin memorial

Police have been posted at the National Cemetery outside the Terezín Memorial after extensive thefts at the site. Culture Ministry spokesman Jan Cieslar said on Friday that a private security agency – which offered its services free of charge – would begin guarding the area next week. The firm will do so until May 18, when a ceremony honouring Holocaust victims will be held at the cemetery. By then, bronze plaques stolen from the site by unknown perpetrators will have been replaced, the Memorial’s director Jan Munk has said. The culture minister has stressed that a project including a camera-monitoring system was being put together, with the Culture Ministry ready to set aside funds. Hundreds of bronze plaques were stolen from the National Cemetery in Terezín in recent days: damages have been estimated at 2.5 million crowns.