Transport El from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 29/09/1944

The transport orders were handed to the camp commander Karl Rahm from the Office for Settlement of the Jewish Question in Prague. According to Vilem Cantor, who was in charge of transport registry in Theresienstadt, the commander passed the transport orders to the Jewish Council which was forced to comply. They included the date of the transport and the number of people to be transferred, as well as any special criteria (in this case, healthy men under the age of 55) the names of several people who were to be included in the transport (Weisungen). The Jewish Administration then held a meeting of up to 30-40 people who represented the different departments and nationality groups within the ghetto, and a list was finalized. In contrast to previous transports, for which inmates were selected together with their spouses and underage children, this transport carried only men. The list also included a reserve amounting to 20% of the transport. If, for some reason, certain inmates could not join the transport, others whose names appeared on the reserve list would be allocated in their stead. According to the Ghetto diary of Phillip Manes, this transport and the one following where announced in a public address by head of the Jewish Council Paul Eppstein on the evening of September 21, 1944. Manes recorded Eppstein’s address as follows: “The Camp Commander’s Office has requested a work transport of 5,000 men aged between 18 and 50 years. They must be dispatched within the shortest period. We are assured that they will return after six weeks upon completion of their required duties. Only the most extremely urgent and justified objections are permissible. The selection will be made on the basis of age only and will include all men, regardless of any important position they may hold. Maintain discipline. This has to be. Make it easier for us, this difficult task – already doubly hard since it is imposed on us during the highest holiday.”...