Transport from Rotterdam, Zuidholland, The Netherlands to Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands on 02/08/1942

On June 11, 1942, Adolf Eichmann, head of the Department for Jewish Affairs and Evacuation (Department IV B4), at the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Reich Main Security Office) convened a meeting in Berlin with the heads of Jewish departments in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Here, the plans for the Final Solution in the Netherlands were set in motion. The directives called for the deportation of Jews (of both sexes) between the ages of 16-40 with 10% deemed unfit for work. It was decided that a total of 15,000 Jews living in the Netherlands were to be deported. As early as June 22 Eichmann informed Franz Rademacher from the German Foreign Office in a Schnellbrief (express letter) that beginning from mid-July 40,000 Jews from the Netherlands were to be deported in special trains (Sonderzuege) carrying 1,000 deportees each. 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 the Zentralstelle in 1941, was forced to draw up lists of the deportees....