Transport 61 from Berlin, Berlin (Berlin), City of Berlin, Germany to Sachsenhausen, Camp, Germany on 05/01/1945

At the beginning of 1945, Nazi Germany faced military defeat. Allied forces liberated France, Belgium and most of the Netherlands. In Eastern Europe, the Red Army had advanced into the Baltic States and Eastern Poland. On January 10, Soviet forces launched a large scale offensive in Eastern Prussia and Poland (Operation Vistula – Oder). By the end of the month, they had advanced to the Oder River - approximately 60 kilometers east of Berlin. Along with the advance, heavy aerial bombardments destroyed the infrastructure of many cities. The German transportation system was thrown into chaos. However, the Gestapo continued to issue deportation orders. Although the city of Berlin had been officially declared "Free of Jews" in June 1943, the Gestapo continued to search for and arrest individual Jews who had gone into hiding or who met other criteria for deportation. 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 61st to leave Berlin for the ghettos and killing sites in Eastern Europe, and was thus designated Osttransport 61. It departed on January 5, 1945. It included 21 deportees. Most 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 January 19, 1945, the Gestapo sent a list with names of the deportees to the Financial Authority (Oberfinanzpräsident), as it did after every transport. However, for Osttransport 61, unlike most transports, three lists were sent: one with names of male deportees, and one with names of female deportees, and a third one which listed three women, each with an underage child. In affidavits submitted in the 1960s, in preparation for the Bovensiepen trial, Fanny Schott, who was on the list of women, claims to have been sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, whereas Joseph Alfred, who was on the list of men, attests to having been sent to Sachsenhausen. These claims are backed by the information collected by the International Tracing Service. From the third, mixed list, Ilse Perl, Klaus Perl, Anna Goldbroch and Regina Joel testify to having been sent to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in Lower Saxony. 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. Bergen-Belsen was liberated on April 15, 1945, and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was liberated on April 22. 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 collected for the Bovensiepen trail would indicate at least eight survivors.