Transport Be, Train Da 404 from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Raasiku, Harjumaa, Estonia on 01/09/1942

The Nazi authorities were apparently in need of additional killing sites for the Jews from Germany. Thus, the Baltic countries came into focus again in the second half of 1942. Eichmann decided to send seven additional trains from the Reich to ghettos and killing sites in the Baltic countries, starting from August 1942. Four mass deportations set out from Berlin to Riga on August 15, September 5, October 19 and 26. Two transports took Jews from Theresienstadt to Riga and Raasiku on August 20 and September 1, a village close to the Baltic coast 30 kilometres from Tallinn, the Estonian capital. One further transport left Frankfurt on September 24, the last large transport from that town, picking up Jews from Berlin en route, also with Raasiku as its destination. According to the timetable for special trains (“Sonderzüge”) of the “Reichsbahn” (the German railroad company), this train was designated Da 404. The schedule for “special trains for migrants (Umsiedler), harvest workforce and Jews” for the period between August 8 and October 30 had been set at the meeting of the Eastern General Operations Board (GBL, Generalbetriebsleitungen Ost) on August 6, 1942, in Frankfurt am Main. “Migrants” and “harvest workforce” were Nazi euphemisms for deportees and forced labourers, which were meant to obscure the trains’ real destinations. The transport orders were handed to the camp commander, Siegfried Seidl from the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish Emigration) in Prague, who passed them on to the Jewish leadership of the ghetto (Ältestenrat). The 202nd Daily Orders of the Jewish Council from August 28, 1942, declared that transport Bd would depart from the Theresienstadt ghetto “to the East” (“nach Osten”) on September 1 (Tuesday). The orders stated that the list of deportees would be published that morning; however, Bd was eventually the designation given to a transport that arrived at Theresienstadt from Prague on September 4, whereas the transport that departed to the East on September 1 was listed as “Be” in the ghetto records. This discrepancy was presumably due to the departure and arrival of numerous transports within a short period of time....