Transport from Khania, Khania, Crete, Greece to Aegean, sea, Murder Site on 04/06/1944

On May 12, 1944, the Commander of the Schupo (Schutzpolizei) in Athens announced that, in accordance with an order issued by the SS-Reichsführer [Heinrich Himmler], "the Jews of Corfu and Crete must be deported immediately". To that end, he asked for "additional shipping material as well as the necessary personnel to accompany [the deportees]". In addition he added: "From Corfu there are around 1,600 Jews on their way to Patras, and from Crete there are around 350 Jews who are to be shipped to Piraeus". Nine days later, on May 21, at 5 o'clock in the morning, Nazi Police officers went from door to door in the Jewish neighborhood of Chania and arrested the Jews of the city. Wilhelm Walter, member of the Secret Field Police, testified during post-war trials carried out in West Germany: "Immediately before my vacation (in July 1944), our unit received the order to take the Jews from their homes. After they came out of their houses with their few belongings, they were transferred to the assembly point and brought to Aghia". During the same post-war trials, Police Master Sergeant Johann Jendges testified: "One morning we were ordered to seal off the area. […] Together with Wehrmacht units, our uniformed military police unit, and other military police, we occupied and sealed off a street where Jews were living". The Jews were forced out of their houses and to cross the quarter's streets carrying a small package with their belongings. "At the end of the street vehicles belonging to the Wehrmacht were waiting for them", Around 260 people were arrested and transferred to Aghia, an infantry base located 10 km from Chania. There they were detained for eight days. On June 4, they were loaded into trucks also belonging to the Wehrmacht and were transferred to Heraklion via Rethymno. They remained in detention for four days in Heraklion in the prison of the Old Venetian Fort, Makassi. Between May 21, the date of the roundup of the Chania Jews and June 8, the date of their departure for Athens, around 15 Jews residing in Heraklion were arrested and transferred to the Makassi Fort as well. On June 8, two days after the Allied Forces invaded Normandy, Crete's Jews were deported. They were taken to the port of Heraklion and loaded aboard a cargo steamship named Tanaïs. Italians as well as Greek Christians, who had been captured following their attempt to kidnap German General Heinrich Kreipe, joined the other deportees. The ship set sail at around 08:30 a.m. in the direction of the port of Piraeus through the Cyclades islands. After passing by the island of Santorini and before reaching the island of Milos, the ship was torpedoed and sunk on June 9, at around 03:00 p.m by the British submarine Vivid in the vicinity of the island of Folegandros. All the deportees drowned.