Small Fortress (Malá pevnost in Czech, Kleine Festung in German) was part of the fortification on the left side of river Ohře. Beginning in 1940, the Gestapo used it as a prison (the largest one in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia). It was separate and unrelated to the Jewish ghetto in the main fortress on the river's right side. Around 32,000 people arrived there and were usually sent to a concentration camp later. 2,600 people were executed, starved, or succumbed to disease there.
Of the 15,000 children sent there, no more than 1,000 survived, and the number may be as low as 100. Anton Malloth was a notorious prison guard at Small Fortress who was convicted of beating at least 100 prisoners to death, and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001, after escaping justice for 55 years.
Read more about this topic: Theresienstadt Concentration Camp
Famous quotes containing the words small and/or fortress:
“If Montaigne is a man in the prime of life sitting in his study on a warm morning and putting down the sum of his experience in his rich, sinewy prose, then Pascal is that same man lying awake in the small hours of the night when death seems very close and every thought is heightened by the apprehension that it may be his last.”
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