Transport Ar from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Zamosc, Zamosc, Lublin, Poland on 28/04/1942

The first transport to Zamość (designated "Ar"), scheduled to leave on April 28, was the 10th transport from Theresienstadt to depart for the East. It is for the first time mentioned in Order No. 109, issued by the Jewish Council of the ghetto on April 24, 1942: "As reported by the commander of the camp, SS-Obersturmführer Dr. Siegfried Seidel, there will be further transports to the East on April 25, 27, 28 and on April 30." As with all transports, the exact destination was not announced. The following order (No. 110) specified that the last two April transports "constitute huge challenges" to the ghetto administration since they "threaten to tear whole families apart." Thus, as of April 28, the parents of employees in the ghetto administration, the parents of specialists and skilled personnel, as well as those who had been exempt for other reasons, might have to reckon with the possibility of being deported as well, contrary to earlier transports. An additional "special order" dated April 27 detailed that people over the age of 67 would be excluded and replaced by younger ones. It also listed the numbers of specific transports that had arrived in Theresienstadt since autumn 1941 from which the deportees to Zamość would be selected. The deportation list became final only in the afternoon of April 27 and the deportees were informed shortly after. The transport left on Tuesday, April 28. Gonda Redlich, deported to Theresienstadt in December 1941, and chosen by the ghetto elders to lead the youth welfare department, was also in charge of selecting individuals for the transports. He noted on April 28 in his diary that he put two sisters who were listed as clerks with him on this transport. He subsequently expresses feelings of guilt: "I see that a man grows accustomed to many things: no sleep, no rest, and to work at a job … that brings only damage and death to others." Eva Roubíčková from Saaz, Sudeten who was deported to Theresienstadt on December 17, 1941 writes about the first Zamość transport in her diary that was later published that people were summoned "all night again. I didn't sleep all night. I waited to find out what was happening with Gi. A hideous night. Everybody had to report by 6 a.m. At seven I got a card from Gi. He had to go." Gi was her great-uncle, Arnost Wolf, deportee No. 735, born August 3, 1891. He was murdered like most of the deportees from this transport....