Transport from Dortmund, Dortmund (Arnsberg), Westphalia, Germany to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 01/03/1943

The Dortmund Gestapo also took part in the operation: on March 1, 1943, it organized a large scale transport to Auschwitz. On February 26, the head of the Dortmund Gestapo, Joachim Illmer, informed all of the Gestapo offices under his command and the mayors of some towns such as Luedenscheid, Luenen and Iserlohn of the upcoming deportation of Jews from the Reich: “Some of the Jews assigned to labour in the Arensberg district must be removed and sent to the East”. Jewish spouses in “mixed marriages”, Jews aged 65 and over, those wounded on the battle field, and decorated war veterans were exempt from deportation. The transport consisted of 1,500 Jews from the Arnsberg district, from Trier, Bielefeld and from Berlin. In Dortmund, the deportees were summoned for what was termed a “document check”. Marga Spiegel and her husband Siegmund, a former horse dealer who was employed in the armament industry, received the summons but decided to go into hiding instead in places that Siegmund had set up in the homes of farmer friends from Westphalia. Marga wrote in her memoirs as follows: “[The summons] was deceitfully written, probably out of fear that someone might try to resist. We, however, understood what was meant by the order “to report for a work document inspection at 09:00am in the Dortmund slaughterhouse.” Hans Frankenthal and his brother, were both employed in road construction for the Lehrmann company in Meschede as forced labourers from 1941. On February 26, 1943, they were ordered by their manager to report to the Jewish school grounds in Kampstrasse to have their papers checked. Hans relates the following events in his memoirs: “The next day, we took the train from Korbach to Dortmund, and reported to Kampstrasse. There, a Gestapo man called our names and said, 'you are under arrest; anyone trying to escape will be shot'. Together with other acquaintances including friends from the trade school, we were taken to the playground in trucks. During this time, the Gestapo repeated their threats […] We went to the Brackel area in Dortmund, where the Gestapo locked us up in the ballroom of the “Zum Deutschen Haus” Hotel....