Visiting Terezin

Terezin is a former WWII ghetto and a Nazi prison camp. 35,000 people died here, and over 80,000 passed through before finding their deaths in extermination camps. It's a ghostly place—its two star-shaped rings of fortification are now covered with grass, the walls are crumbling, the houses of the former ghetto seem mostly abandoned. Searching for a good restaurant here seems absurd—but it's exactly what I had to do.

I headed to the place we reviewed last year. It was just outside the ghetto fortifications, which came as a relief—the terrace actually offered a nice view of grassy fields, poplar trees, and some gates leading under the ground. It was only later that I learned that the gates belonged to the Central Mortuary, where bodies were put inside coffins, and the Columbarium, which stored the ashes of cremated victims. I guess the "relief" part is relative.

When I entered, there was no staff and no customers. After I waited for a while, a young bartender sprung up out of nowhere. I asked a few obligatory questions (Do you accept credit cards? No.) but then he just kinda talked on his own, probably happy to have company. He said there had been some other guy asking questions like that, some kind of American from Paris. I was intrigued. When was he here? "Oh, some time ago. Last summer. And before that, there was another guy, but this time a journalist, from America. He needed it for some article he was writing." Sounds like the previous Let's Go writers left a lasting impression in this small restaurant.

What else did he tell me? That his father runs the restaurant, but leaves every weekend to clear his mind of the place. He said the business was going down, with restaurants in the entire area empty all day long. He said he was on a health-related pension and earned some pocket money by working weekends, but there were no jobs to be found around. He said he thought he was too meek, very unlike his father.

I had food and a beer on the terrace, but decided to leave it unfinished after a fat black fly fell inside the glass. When I went inside to pay, I saw the white-haired father yelling at the son about something, but he stopped and disappeared when he saw me. I paid and wished the young guy good luck in the future.

"Thanks. And come again," he said.