Transport As from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Zamosc, Zamosc, Lublin, Poland on 30/04/1942

The second transport to Zamość (designated "As"), scheduled to leave on April 30, was the 11th 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. 73% of the deportees on transport "As" to Zamosc had just arrived at the ghetto with transport "Ao" from Prague just two days earlier, on April 28. They stayed in the quarantine site (“Schleuse”) where they received their next deportation order for April 30. The remaining ghetto inmates scheduled for transport had to report to the “Schleuse”) as well in the courtyard of the Aussig Barracks, along with their luggage. On the day of the transport, the Jews were marched or taken by truck to the Bauschowitz (Bohusovice) train station, some 3 km outside the ghetto, where they boarded the railway cars that were waiting. The deportees were allowed to take 50 kg of luggage and 100 Zloties. The train left on Thursday, April 30. They travelled in old passenger cars via Dresden, Breslau, Lodz and Lublin. The journey lasted about two days. Little food or water was handed out. However, the deportees were allowed to carry provisions. It is likely that the train stopped in at Lublin's Central Station and that some of the men between 15 and 55, deemed fit for work were selected by the SS and brought to Majdanek. This was the case with transport "Ax" to Siedliszcze on May 9 and with transport "Az" to Lublin on May 25. On May 12, Kreishauptmann Dr. Werner Ansel, the county commissioner of Chelm, addressed the common practice of the SS in Lublin to "reserve" the best Jewish workers, and complained to the SSPF Odilo Globocnik, that his men had “snatched" the strongest and healthiest Jews, leaving him, Ansel, with much less efficient workers. The names of some of the deportees from transport "As" are also recorded in the Majdanek Death Book....