Mezinarodni Pametni Dny Odboje [International Resistance Memorial Days]

Documenting the horrors of the Holocaust.

“Location of concentration camps, correctional facilities, and prisons in which citizens of Czechoslovakia were imprisoned in the years 1939 – 1945” – Subtitle.

This starkly effective poster map showcases the geographic extent of the Holocaust across German territory and Czechoslovakia during World War II. The borders of the Third Reich, shown in white, contain dozens of facilities used to perpetuate the system of forced labor and cultural annihilation through the network of Konzentrationslager (concentration camps), commonly abbreviated KL or KZ. Further locations are noted within the Czech Republic, whose truncated territory is shown after the partitions of Munich Agreement, but before the First Vienna Award (note Kosice within the boundaries).

A legend in the lower right identifies the various symbols used throughout the map. Extermination camps are represented with tall crematoria smokestacks, with the largest at Osvetim (the main camp of Auschwitz) noted as capable of gassing and burning 15,000 – 30,000 daily. Other facilities where the ‘arbitrary liquidation of persons’ took place are labeled accordingly, along with prisons and penitentiaries (black dots). Four prison ships, mistakenly targeted by an RAF raid on May 3rd 1945, held thousands of victims and are named in the North Sea.

The map was drawn by Bohumil Tesarek in 1973. According to the United States Holocaust Museum, Tesarek had property confiscated while part of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Printed in Prague by Nase Vojsko. Published by the Czech Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters, a national organization founded in 1951 “to develop the traditions of the struggle against fascism, to spread the historical truth about this struggle, to expose contemporary forms of fascism, to care for memorial sites, to publish and distribute anti-fascist press and literature, etc.” (European Holocaust Research Infrastructure). The map is rare and unlisted in WorldCat as of September 2024.

Sources: European Holocaust Research Infrastructure; Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial; United States Holocaust Museum;