Transport, Train 11537 from Amsterdam, Noordholland, The Netherlands to Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands on 15/07/1942

The first mass transport left Westerbork, the main transit camp for the Netherlands, for Auschwitz-Birkenau on July 15. Following its smooth departure, the representative of the Foreign Office in the Netherlands Otto Bene, informed the Berlin Office that the aim was now to deport 4,000 Jews per week. In the coming months, a train left Westerbork for Auschwitz almost every Tuesday and Friday. The deportation list was based upon an almost complete registration of Dutch Jewry that had been compiled in January 1941 by the head of the State Inspectorate of Population Registers (Rijksinspectie van de Bevolkingsregisters), Jacob Lentz. The Jewish Council (Joodse Raad), which had been formed by German order and made subordinate to the Zentralstelle in 1941, was forced to draw up lists of the deportees. The Zentralstelle sent each deportee a summons with a list of permitted provisions such as a suitcase, working shoes, a food bowl, food supplies for three days, etc. – thus camouflaging the deportation as a labour assignment. Jews had to report to the Zentralstelle prior to deportation and hand over their apartment keys. Their removal from the Netherlands went hand in hand with the expropriation of their personal belongings. German and Dutch firms – some aryanized, such as the Lippmann-Rosenthal bank – implemented this process and profited from it....