Transport Du from Praha, Praha Hlavni Mesto, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 28/01/1944

Transport "Du" set out from Prague for Theresienstadt on January 28, 1944. Twenty-six Jews were aboard ranging in age from a 9-monthold girl to an 80-year old woman. Marianne Fowler nee Eliasek, in her testimony, described transport "Du" as a freight train and noted that it had departed from a freight depot. She was reunited with her mother on the train who had been arrested by the Gestapo almost 2 months earlier in December 1943. Marianne related that she remembered the horrific stench that wafted from her mother’s clothing which had not been changed since her arrest. After reaching Theresienstadt, deportees usually spent approximately three days in an intake area that the ghetto inhabitants called the “Schleuse.” While there, they were dispossessed of all valuables that appeared on a list of contraband by the SS and Czech police. Afterwards, they were housed in barracks under severely overcrowded conditions. In her testimony, Marianne Fowler reported that those on her transport had been undressed and examined at the Schleuse after having reached Theresienstadt....