On the old military hospital and why there?

97 Poets of Revachol is a game that is very much built around the sense of place. It is a story of a building and its denizens, of people in a fictional world that is in many important aspects very similar to our own. It is a game about an old, abandoned hospital which now serves a new purpose, about poverty, violent revolutions long past, and finding life and beauty in the darkest places.

This means set designis extremely important to us, and we will definitely want to present the way we think about the set.. But in this first blog post, we really need to talk about the building itself and why we want to run the game there.

The game will take place in the town of Terezín. The fortress of Terezín was built at the end of the 18th century by Austrian emperor Joseph II as part of a line of fortresses defending Czech lands against possible Prussian invasions (along with Josefov and Hradec Králové). Built as the pinnacle of military engineering, the fortifications fulfilled their role as a deterrent, and Terezín was never sieged. During the 19th century, the town inside the fortress grew. The event takes place in the military hospital inside the fortifications. 

During the First World War, the hospital was also used as a military prison, its most famous prisoner being Gavrilo Princip. The man who shot Franz Ferdinand and started a chain reaction that resulted in the First World War died here in 1918. Cause of death: tuberculosis.

The darkest time for Terezín came during the Second World War. In 1940, the Prague Gestapo established its jail and execution yard in the Small Fortress, separate from the town of Terezín. In November of 1941, the whole fortress town of Terezín was converted into a ghetto where Jews were concentrated under the pretense of “living in their own city”. In fact, Terezín was a major transit place to extermination camps, with more than 87,000 deported, only about 3,800 of them surviving. People in the Terezín ghetto itself suffered of appalling hygienic conditions, horrible overcrowding, and very high mortality rates. The hospital served its original purpose, but with severe shortages of medical supplies and widespread epidemics, it was tragically underequipped to deal with the conditions of the ghetto. Nazi propaganda also attempted to portray Terezín as a comfortable, civilised place that “the Leader gave to the Jews”. The reality was, of course, incomparably worse.

After the fall of the Nazi regime, Terezín once again became a town with a small civilian population and a big military presence. That lasted till the Velvet Revolution in 1989 when the Communist regime was toppled. After that, the Army gave its buildings over to the town of Terezín and left. In the following decades, most of these buildings did not find an immediate use and despite asurge of EU funds, the town itself, with its rather small budget and without adequate state support, struggled to even maintain the buildings. This resulted,for example, in the old infantry barracks falling into disrepair and collapsing in several places. As there are so many historical buildings and their size is so disproportionate to the size of the town, the situation has only been improving extremely slowly, relying on the help of associations trying to bring new life and visitors to Terezín (like Terezín – město změny).

Most importantly – Terezín is a real town with real people who live there. It´s not a museum, it is a living town that is bravely trying to responsibly care of a massive, expensive, slowly collapsing legacy wrought with great horrors. 

Rolling has been working in Terezín for quite some time now. We have been renting out parts of the Old Military Hospital as our base of operations, supporting the town budget directly with cash and paying for extra repairs (like new windows) when we can. We also run games in the building, and we have been trying to open it up to the public. 

97 Poets of Revachol are specifically tailored to run in this venue, aiming to help bring people and art to Terezín, to do our part in revitalising it. We are working in cooperation with the town council and other local associations. We have both historians and political extremism experts on the team to make sure the game will be respectful. We are fully aware of the site’s history, we care about the building very much, and we believe that doing this game can be an important step in repairing it.

We have been working to help preserve the building, find some funds for it, and give it some more dignity than leaving it as empty, rotting corridors would. Through 97 Poets of Revachol, you can also be part of that process and find beauty after horrors.

As such, we believe that this venue is perfect for the game and its themes.

All the photos used are public domain or by the following photographers:

Lenka Anois Kopečková: https://www.facebook.com/anoisinaspoust
Jan Haken: https://www.facebook.com/janhakenphoto
Tereza Šolcová: https://www.facebook.com/friendoflightphotography