30 August 2006
A Japanese peace group has erected a monument at the former Theresienstadt transit camp, JTA reports. On Monday, a giant peace pole with the inscription “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in Czech, Japanese, German and English was dedicated at the camp, now a museum in the Czech Republic, by members of the Japanese branch of the World Peace Prayer Society. The Japanese said they had chosen Terezin, as the camp is called in Czech, because it is a symbol of wartime suffering. The Nazis set up a ghetto in Terezin in 1941 and brought there some 155,000 Jews from all over Europe, most of whom were deported to death camps, particularly Auschwitz. Some 35,000 Jews died in the ghetto from disease and hunger due to the horrible conditions. There are more than 200,000 peace poles in 190 countries.
