Transport from Kastoria, Florina, Macedonia, Greece to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 26/03/1944

In the morning of March 24, 1944, the deportation of the Jews of Kastoria was put into effect by the SS. They went from door to door and ordered the Jews to gather at the girls' school of the town. By the end of the day, all the Jews of Kastoria had been assembled inside the school. They were kept there for a couple of days without food and in crowded conditions, and were repeatedly forced to relinquish any valuables they had brought with them. Those who had not brought any (or enough) were accompanied home by SS officers in order to bring what remained hidden there. "They took my father and we were very upset until we saw him back. They took him home, he gave again whatever he had in the house and there I remember taking off my earrings that I had since I was a child. […] I had to give them to them", recalls Allegra Korman. A couple of days later, most probably on March 26, on a snowy day, around 763 Jews of Kastoria were ordered into trucks and deported to Thessaloniki, located around 200 km away from Kastoria. Upon arrival, the deportees were incarcerated in a camp in the Harmankioi region of the city. The place was fenced off with barbed wire, and consisted of one long barrack and a yard. German SS guards supervised the camp. The only food detainees received was soup and a small piece of bread. Kastoria's Jews were detained there for 4-5 days and were joined by deportees from Athens and other cities from mainland Greece namely, Ioannina, Trikala, Volos, Larissa, Arta, Preveza, Patra, and Chalkis. On April 5, these Jews, now numbering around 5,200, were ordered into railway cars destined for Auschwitz-Birkenau. During the long journey lasting approximately six days the deportees had to endure intense cold, starvation, and humiliation. Each car contained around 70 people and had only one small window covered with a grid and two buckets inside; one contained water and the other was designated to serve as a toilet. The wagons were so full that there was not enough space to sit. "They brought the trains and they put us on the trains, cattle trains with one little hole. A bucket for a toilet, one on top of each other, like sardines, sitting with our knees bent", recalls Allegra Korman....