Transport from Praha, Praha Hlavni Mesto, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia to Sosnowiec, Sosnowiec, Kielce, Poland on 28/10/1939

The third transport from Ostrava to Nisko on November 1 was the seventh and last transport of the Nisko project. It was ordered by Eichmann and supervised by the local branch of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Prague (Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung in Prag, Zweigstelle Mährisch-Ostrau), headed by SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Günther. The train was dispatched even though Eichmann had been ordered as early as October 19 and again on October 20 by Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller to cease all further deportations to Nisko. The November transport consisted mainly of non-Czech Jews residing in Prague. Nearly all of them were Polish citizens or stateless Jews of Polish origin. Jakob Edelstein became the liaison between the Jewish community in Prague and the SS. He was later known as the first Jewish Elder in the Theresienstadt ghetto. At the beginning of September, he told four representatives of the Jewish community to draw up a list of the Jews in Prague who were Polish nationals. The Nazis threatened the community with collective punishment should they not cooperate and so they had no choice but to comply. Beginning on September 9, the Gestapo initiated mass arrests. On Rosh Hashanah alone, the Jewish New Year (September 14/15, 1939) approximately 300 people were hauled out of synagogues and private homes. Most of these Jews were detained in the Petschek-Palais and brought from there to the infamous Pankràc prison. Some of these detainees were already deported on October 24 to Ostrava from where they left for Nisko two days later. Following Eichmann’s order from the Central Office for Jewish Emigration (Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung) the Gestapo and the Prague SD (Sicherheitsdienst – the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi party) arranged the deportation of 322 Jews on October 28. They emptied all prisons with the remaining Polish nationals. The detainees were allowed to ask their families for food rations and to bring luggage weighing up to 50 kg. They were all loaded into 10 third class passenger cars bound for Ostrava. Each car had two guards. Originally this transport was to travel directly from Prague to Nisko. However, the train had to stop frequently because the line from and to Poland was overloaded with military transports. One of the deportees S. Moldawer, originally from Leipzig, recalls after the war:...