Theresienstadt Small Fortress (1940–1945)

The "Small Fortress" (Malá pevnost in Czech, Kleine Festung in German) was part of the fortification on the east side of the river Ohře. It was separate from and unrelated to the Jewish ghetto in the main fortress on the river's west side. Beginning in 1940, the Gestapo used it as a prison, the largest in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The first inmates arrived on June 14, 1940. By the end of the war, 32,000 prisoners, of whom 5,000 were female, passed through the Small Fortress; most were usually deported later to a concentration camp.