The Small Fortress of Terezín is a distinctive part of the city of Terezín, located on the right bank of the Ohře River, four kilometers southwest of Litoměřice. The complex was founded in 1780 as a military defense fortress, and was completed around 1790. From the 19th century. served as a political prison, between 1940-1945 as a prison of the Prague Gestapo. After the war, it was used as an intervention camp, today it has been turned into a memorial.
The small fortress is part of the overall concept of the Terezin fortress. The fortification is based on the French school of fortification in Méziéres. The strength value lies primarily in its overall composition of fortification elements. Terezín represents the pinnacle of fortress construction based on the bastion principle.
During the First World War, the small fortress played the role of a prison for opponents of Austria-Hungary and the war. The largest POW camp on Czech territory was established in the immediate vicinity of Terezín. During the First World War, the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip was imprisoned here, who on June 28, 1914 committed the assassination of František Ferdinand d'Este and his wife Žofia Chotková in Sarajevo. This event led to World War I. Princip died in the appalling conditions of the Terezín prison after four years on April 28, 1918, of tuberculosis.
During the Second World War, from June 10, 1940 to May 1945, the infamous Prague Gestapo prison was located here. In addition to our citizens (about 90%), citizens of the former Soviet Union, Poles, Yugoslavs, French, Italians, English prisoners of war and members of other nations were also imprisoned here. In five years, 32,000 men and women passed through the gates of the Small Fortress.