Transport from Rotterdam, Zuidholland, The Netherlands to Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands on 04/10/1942

On Friday October 2 Inspector J.W.J. Moerman of the Rotterdam police received orders from the Commander of the Security Police and Security Service (Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienstes, KdS) of Rotterdam, H. Moller, to gather 300 police men in the canteen of the headquarters at 20.00 hours. They were to be divided into squads of three policemen each. One co-worker from “group 10’ - the pro-German, national socialist police unit of Rotterdam in charge of arresting Jews and finding those who had gone into hiding - was attached to each group. This measure was apparently taken to prevent sabotage by Dutch policemen who sometimes tried to warn the Jews before the arrests. They were told that they were going to pick up Jews from their homes. The arrested Jews were taken to Loods 24 in the Stieltjesstraat. The wooden warehouse was located in a closed area at Rotterdam port. It had previously been used for storing tobacco. Alongside the warehouse sat train tracks with a connection to the main Dutch railway network. The Jews arrested on October 3 were mainly women and children whose husbands and fathers had already been taken to labour camps and evacuated to Westerbork. On Sunday morning October 4, very early at 02:52 a.m. a train with hundreds of arrested Jews left from Loods 24 to the train yard Ijsselmonde. From there it departed at 03.12 northwards to Gouda-Utrecht and travelled to Hooghalen via Amersfoort and Zwolle where it arrived at 8.30. That same night 10 other trains from Amsterdam and other places, each transporting ca. 1,000 Jews left for Westerbork. Since no transport list of this transport survived, we do not know the exact number of deportees on this train. It is most probable that many Jews from this transport were deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz in the beginning of October.