Transport En from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 04/10/1944

The transport orders were handed down from the Office for Settlement of the Jewish Question (Zentralamt zur Regelung der Judenfrage) in Prague to the camp commander Karl Rahm. According to Vilem Cantor, who was in charge of transport registry in Theresienstadt, the commander passed these 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 these included the parents, spouses and underage children of the people previously sent to Auschwitz. The expulsion of veterans of WW1 and former spouses of non-Jews, who were protected from previous transports, was also authorized. The orders also included the names of several other people who were to be included in the transport (Weisungen). The Jewish Council 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. 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. On October 2, 1944, house and block elders were instructed to notify the relatives of inmates sent on previous transports to prepare for transport. The inhabitants of the ghetto were led to believe that the people on the transport were going to a new labour camp by the name of Riesa near Dresden, built by the men who had gone out on previous transports: this deception was compounded by the instruction that they should bring light luggage, suitable for work....