The dark places of interest in the Czech Republic

The recent phenomenon of so-called ‘Dark Tourism’ attracts visitors to places where a tragedy or accident has taken place in the distant or sometimes not so distant past.

Let mention a few of these places:

Terezín
In 1941 the small town of Terezín was turned into a concentration camp for thousands of mainly Czech Jews. From here inmates were transported to the death camps at Auschwitz. The Ghetto Museum can be found in the former Terezín school. The Lesser Fortress dating from the late 18th century was used during World War II as a prison belonging to the Prague Gestapo. This place of Nazi tyranny is visited by 300,000 visitors annually.

Lidice and Ležáky
Lidice and Ležáky are villages which were wiped off the map by the Nazis during World War II. They paid for indirect or alleged association with the assassination of Reichsprotektor Heydrich. The small village of Lidice met its fate on June 10, 1942; the men folk were shot, the women taken away to concentration camps and most of the children murdered. The village itself was razed to the ground. The same fate met the hamlet of Ležáky a fortnight later.

The Austerlitz battlefield
The Austerlitz battlefield became a mass grave containing the bodies of soldiers from several countries. In the adjacent museum visitors can see a multimedia exhibition entitled ‘The Battle of the Three Emperors, Slavkov/Austerlitz 1805’. At the monument marking the battlefield a service of remembrance takes place every year at the end of November or the beginning of December to honour those who fell during the battle. This is the climax of a series of events marking the anniversary of the battle. Around 55,000 people visit the museum at Austerlitz every year.

The Church of Ss Cyril and Methodius in Prague
The Church of Ss Cyril and Methodius served as a place of refuge for the parachutists who carried out the assassination of Reichsprotektor Heydrich. The SS and Gestapo surrounded the church on the 18th of June, 1942 and early in the morning the battle began. Heavily outnumbered by the Germans, the seven parachutists hadn’t a hope of escaping, and when their ammunition ran out, they used their last bullets to take their own lives.

The Jáchymov mine
The trail through the Jáchymov hell leads visitors to place where camps and mines where set up in the 1950s, and where political prisoners of the communist regime mined uranium in inhumane conditions.

The Hradce Králové battlefield
The Hradce Králové battlefield was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles the 19th century ever witnessed. On the 3rd of July, 1866, Prussian and Austrian forces clashed to the northwest of Hradec Králové. On a hill near Chlum there are over 400 tombs, mass graves and symbolic monuments.

The Vojna Memorial in Příbram
The Vojna Memorial in Příbram and a museum dedicated to the victims of communism can be found on the site of a former prison camp dating from the years 1947–1949. From 1949 until 1951 this was a labour camp, and until 1961 it served as a jail for political prisoners of the communist regime.

The Vyšehrad Cemetery
The Vyšehrad Cemetery is a place you’ll often find school parties, as around 600 important personalities from Czech history – writers, scientists, poets, artists, composers, actors, doctors, politicians and many others – are buried here. The main pathway through the cemetery leads to the Slavín, a collective tomb for some of the nation’s greatest.

The Prague’s Wenceslas Square
The Prague’s Wenceslas Square was the place where students Jan Palach and subsequently Jan Zajíc chose to sacrifice themselves in 1969 in protest at the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet forces. A small monument stands in front of the National Museum, on the very spot where Jan Palach set himself ablaze. A bronze cross bearing the names of both students stands above two low mounds which emerge from the pavement.

The chateau in Velké Losiny
The chateau in Velké Losiny is infamous for witch trials. In the late 17th century inquisitor Jindřich Boblig came here from Šumperk to oversee witch hunts and trials, which sentenced 56 people to be burnt at the stake.

Other dark places you might want to visit in the Czech Republic include Brno’s Špilberk Castle, the ‘prison of nations’ and the Bílá Hora battlefield.