Altogether, more than 81 000 Jews were deported from the Czech lands to Terezín (Theresienstadt), Lodz and other camps between 1941 and 1945. Only 10, 500 of them survived until liberation. A sizeable part of the Jewish population was not transported, but took part in illegal resistance activity or went into hiding. Many people also preferred to take their own lives rather than be transported. The number of Jews in the Protectorate who engaged in illegal activity, were arrested or committed suicide is estimated at around 8 000. Fewer than 850 of them survived, according to estimates. The Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish question
in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia thus claimed almost 80 000 lives.
To preserve the dimensions of the tragedy that was the genocide of the Jewish population of the Czech lands during the Second World War, we need to remind ourselves continually that behind these abstract figures stand the fates of specific men, women and children, each with his or her own face, political beliefs and above all right to human dignity. It is for this reason that the names of those murdered have been recorded on the walls of the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague, and in the pages of theTerezín Memorial Book.
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Literature:
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Kárný, Miroslav. Terezínská pamětní kniha. Židovské oběti nacistických deportací z Čech a Moravy, 1941-1945. Praha: Nadace Terezínská iniciativa - Melantrich, 1995, sv. I., II. 1559 s.
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Lagus, Karel, Polák, Josef a Polák, Karel. Město za mřížemi (Stadt hinter Gittern). Praha: Naše vojsko - SPB, 1964. 365 s.
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