Week-long education event at Terezín also honors genocide of Roma with concert and flag

On 22 June yet another year of the Vlak Lustig (“Lustig Train”) project began in the spaces of the former Jewish ghetto at Terezín, the aim of which is to inform the public, including schoolchildren, about the causes and consequences of genocides in world history. This year the project will include information about Holocaust victims who are Romani.

The five-day program includes concerts, exhibitions, films and lectures. There will also be a performance in a train wagon symbolically commemorating the Nazi transports of victims that crossed Europe during the Second World War.

The Lustig Train Wagon is located in the courtyard of the artillery barracks in the Main Fortress at Terezín. The train wagon has also traveled to countries around Europe to commemorate the victims of the Nazi transports.

The week began with a documentary film of a Czech theatrical production called “Klára 3847 – příliš mnoho hvězd” (“Klara 3847 – Too Many Stars”) about a girl who survived Auschwitz, as well as a chamber staging of Nemilovaná (“The Unloved”) based on the novella by Arnošt Lustig. Yesterday the train wagon became the stage for a performance by the Janáčkova kvarteta (Janáček Quartet) of compositions written by prisoners in the ghetto at Terezín and other concentration camps.

Today traditional Romani music will be performed in the train wagon to honor the memories of Romani people murdered during the war and the Romani flag will be flown there. The complete program for the Vlak Lustig week is available on the website of its organizer, the Theresienstadt Centre for Genocide Studies.