Transport from Firenze, Firenze, Toscana, Italy to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 09/11/1943

Wehrmacht troops entered Firenze (Florence) on September 11, 1943.[1] According to the racial census of August 22, 1938, the capital of Tuscany was home to 2,326 Jews (compared to 2,730 Jews in 1931), while another 3,605 Jews lived in the rest of the province.[2] On September 13, 1943, the German military authorities in Florence ordered the Prefecture to release their data about Jewish residents.[3]
On September 20, Eugenio Artom, a member of the Jewish Council of Florence, took protective measures against the impending German aktion. He decided to close the premises of the Jewish community, have the employees cease work, and suspend services at the synagogue.[4] Rabbi Nathan Cassuto, the chief Rabbi of Florence, together with his deputy Fernando Belgrado, spent the month of October going from house to house, warning the families of the looming danger, and trying to convince them to leave as soon as possible.[5] Louis Goldman, a German-born refugee who had been raised in wartime France, before arriving in Florence, recalled the extensive help of the Catholic Church, as announced by the Rabbi : ''It's difficult for the priests to find places for everyone…. To hide the maximum number of people, families will have to split up. Women will go to convents, men spread among monasteries and some private Catholic homes, and we will take the children to schools or orphanages.''[6] Many heeded this advice. However, at the time there was also a constant influx of foreign Jewish refugees from the Reich and the German-occupied territories, most of whom arrived one by one from the Cuneo valleys in Piedmont, after crossing the Maritime Alps on foot, or by makeshift means, following the retreat of the Italian Fourth Army from southeastern France. They were supported by the local Church, by the Italian resistance, and by the Committee for the Assistance of Jewish Refugees, which was funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.[7]
On Friday, November 6, 1943, the Germans carried out a massive roundup, comparable to that of Rome on October 16 in terms of the methods used and the number of victims caught.[8] The operation was organized and implemented by an SS detachment from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office - RSHA), under the direction of SS-Hauptsturmführer Theodor Dannecker, a special envoy of SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann. The permanent office of his unit was at the BdS headquarters, the central command of the Sipo (Sicherheitspolizei) and the SD (Sicherheitsdienst) for Northern Italy in Verona.[9] However, Dannecker did not show up in person, because he was sick. Instead, he sent his deputy, SS-Unterscharführer Alwin Eisenkolb, who was presumably accompanied by about ten other SS officers.[10] According to a telegram from Rome to the RSHA, signed by SS-Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler, who headed the Aussenkomma