Transport Ay from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to unstated place on 17/05/1942

The first transport to Lublin carrying 1,000 Jews ( designated "Ay") was the 13th transport from Theresienstadt to the East. It is documented in a Special Order of the Day (No. 124), issued by the Jewish council of Theresienstadt on May 13, 1942. As with the other transports, it was simply called "Ostentransport" (transport to the East) and the deportees were left in the dark regarding the final destination. The Jewish council specified that mainly people from the incoming transport "Au 1" from Prague, scheduled to arrive on May 15 would board this train. Additional passengers would be informed on May 16. "Au 1" indeed arrived on May 15 with 1,000 Jews. Shortly after their arrival these Jews were informed of their onward transport. Most of the deportees spent two days in the "Schleuse", one of several quarantine sites and transfer yards, in the building complex, Kavalier 8. Others were directed to the Magdeburg Barracks. A few of the deportees remained in Theresienstadt for health and age related reasons. Their places were taken by other Theresienstadt inmates. The Order No. 128 which was published on May 18 confirmed that transport "Ay" departed on May 17. There are no known documents or testimonies about the travel route or the destination. However, since the saved records from the Majdanek Death Book show 146 entries with names from transport "Ay", it can be assumed that this transport was dispatched in the same or in a similar manner as transports "Ax" on May 9 and "Az" on May 25 which were both directed to Lublin's Central Railway Station where a number of people were selected by the SS for forced labor in Majdanek. This assumption is corroborated by research conducted by historians Tatiana Berenstein and Adam Rutkowski. They maintain that the Nazis interned about 3,000 Jews from the Theresienstadt transports in April and May 1942 in Majdanek. According to a study authored by the Polish historian Zofia Leszczynska, even five trains from Theresienstadt carrying 1,000 Jews each reached Lublin between April 20 and May 27, either directly or after passing through several camps and ghettos within the Lublin district. Those deportees who were not selected for labor in Majdanek were probably deported further, either to a transit ghetto or to Sobibór. In some sources, the given destination of transport "Ay" is a forced labor camp named Zulia near Lublin. The origin of this information is unclear. There is a Polish village named Zulin in the Krasnystaw County, 23 km from Chelm and 11 km from neighboring Rejowiec which served as the destination for transport "Ap" on April 18. However, any reference to this location as a transit stop for the murder of Jews remains inconclusive....