Transport 59 from Berlin, Berlin (Berlin), City of Berlin, Germany to Sachsenhausen, Camp, Germany on 24/11/1944

The deportees were brought to the assembly site at 78 Schul Street where they were detained until a larger group of Jews was assembled and the Reichsbahn had supplied one or two railway cars for their transport. This transport, was originally listed as the 59th to leave Berlin for the ghettos and killing sites in Eastern Europe, and was thus designated Osttransport 59. It departed on November 24, 1944. It included 28 deportees. Previous transports leaving Berlin with the designation “Osttransport” have gone to Auschwitz, but this does not seem to be the case with this particular transport. On December 1, 1944, the Gestapo sent list with names of the deportees to the Financial Authority (Oberfinanzpräsident), as it did after every transport. However, for Osttransport 59, unlike for previous transports two lists were sent: one with names of male deportees, and one with names of female deportees. In affidavits submitted during the 1950s, Helene Mandel and Helene Hopp who were on the list of women, claim to have been sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, whereas Heinrich Skapower and Siegfried Caspari, who were on the list of men, attest to have been sent to Sachsenhausen. These claims are backed by the International Tracing Service, which lists Hanni Hopp as having arrived in Ravensbrück on November 24, 1944. The deportees included in the later transports from Berlin to Auschwitz were typically Jewish spouses in so-called “mixed marriages” who lost their protection due to divorce or death of the non-Jewish spouse, or who were suspected of violating the anti-Jewish regulations Another group of deportees consisted of Jews who lived illegally in hiding and were caught, often due to their denunciation by German civilians or Jewish collaborators. As the end of the war approached, the Germans began deporting the collaborators as well. Previously, deportees were ordered into a closed cattle car or a prisoner car which was attached to a regular train; later transports might have made use of trucks or municipal railways. The Sachsenhausen camp was liberated on April 22, 1945, and Ravensbrück was liberated eight days later. According to historian Rita Meyhöfer, only two of the deportees on this transport are known to have survived the war, but the testimonies at hand would indicate at least four survivors.