Transport from Dresden, Dresden (Dresden Bautzen), Saxony, Germany to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 02/03/1943

The joint transport, which left Dresden on March 2 or 3, 1943, consisted of a number of transports with Jews from Paderborn, Hannover, Dresden and other western and eastern German towns. In light of the advanced destruction of the Jewish communities in the Reich, the Gestapo offices in small and midsized towns were, at this point in time, unable to assemble large scale transports to the East according to the RSHA guidelines. Therefore, the deportation train travelled eastwards, stopping at a number of towns to pick up smaller groups of deportees to make up the numbers. According to current research, when the train left Germany, it carried a total of around 1,500 Jews. At least two survivors, among them one from Dresden, recall that the train stopped several times for a period of hours and that it grew in length. It was the third large transport that left the Reich as a result of the "Factory Action". Almost all deportees from Dresden were arrested in connection with it. On the way to Dresden, it transported 99 persons from Paderborn, 84 from Bielefeld and 38 from Hannover. Maybe some Jews, who previously had emigrated from Norway, were also loaded on that train. Prior to the deportation from Dresden around 350 Jews from the districts of Erfurt, Halle (Saale), Leipzig, Chemnitz and Plauen had also been arrested during the Factory Action. In Dresden these Jews were concentrated in the Hellerberg camp that had been established at the Goehle plant of the Zeiss Ikon Company in the northern outskirts of Dresden to intern slave workers. Earlier on January 17, 1943, Victor Klemperer, the philologist from Dresden had noted in his diary: "[...] large number of Jews are being given the notice. Half the (Jewish) workforce has already given the sack [...] Now there is supposed to be a new Reich decree: No Jew can be employed in an armaments plant anymore [...] Poland looms."...