Transport Aq from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Izbica, Krasnystaw, Lublin, Poland on 27/04/1942

The transport orders were handed from the Central Office for Jewish Emigration (Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung) in Prague to the commander of ghetto Theresienstadt (Terezín), Siegfried Seidl, who passed them on to the Jewish leadership (Ältestenrat). On April 24, the Jewish Council announced in the Daily Order (Tagesbefehl) Nr. 109, that another transport to the East ("Ostentransport") would be dispatched on April 27, notifications would be given out on April 25. Certain groups were eligible for exemption and could apply by April 25, at 6:00 p.m. These included families, which otherwise would be torn apart, people above 65 years of age, veterans of WWI, Jews married to Non-Jews, or those with foreign citizenship. One day before departure, on April 26, the Jewish leadership informed the inmates, that this time, in order not to tear families apart, skilled personnel who had until then been exempt from deportation so that they could build the ghetto would be included in the transport. On the same day, a special Daily Order ("Sonder-Tagesbefehl") was released: People above 65 years of age would not be deported, as had been the case with previous deportations. This meant that younger people were sent instead. Jews who had lately arrived at Theresienstadt now had to get ready and expect to be included in the upcoming transport together with their spouses. In her Theresienstadt diary entry dated April 26, Eva Roubickova, a teenager at the time, who was not included in this transport, wrote about the haste needed in light of the short notice given: "The mood is dreadful everywhere. Everybody's packing and getting ready, because each of us must expect to go." That same evening, the final transport notifications were handed out to the deportees. Due to the short time left, any possibility of appeal was denied. The transport, designated “Aq”, departed from Theresienstadt on April 27, 1942. Around 1,000 Theresienstadt inmates were on board. The train's destination was the transit ghetto Izbica, southeast of Lublin in the General Government. On the day of the transport, the Jews were marched or taken by truck to the Bohusovice (Bauschowitz) train station, some 3 km outside the ghetto where they were loaded onto the railway cars that were waiting. After the train left, Eva Roubickova noted in her diary: "Lots of older transports [Jews from earlier transports that had arrived at the ghetto] were summoned in the night and were gone by early morning. Half our room was in them." According to the diary entry of Egon (Gonda) Redlich, head of the Children and Youth Department in the ghetto (April 27), "[...] at the last minute it was discovered that many of those who boarded the transport were sick." From Theresienstadt, the train presumably went north to Dresden, and then east to Breslau (Wroclaw), Posen (Poznan), and finally stopped at Izbica, probably on April 29, two days after departure. In Izbica, the deportees were placed temporarily in the housing of the local Jews who had been murdered in order to make space for new arrivals. Many deportees died in Izbica of starvation, disease, or were murdered. Most of them however were sent on to extermination camps shortly after reaching the transit camp, probably to Belzec, which began operating in March, 1942. Here they were immediately gassed. Although we are unable to trace any testimonies, according to current research only two women from this transport survived the Holocaust.