Transport Eo from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 06/10/1944

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, the house and block elders in the ghetto 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. The first transport of such relatives departed on October 4, and two others would soon follow. This transport was the fifth to leave Theresienstadt for Auschwitz in this final wave of 11 such transports. On October 4 or 5, the inmates selected for this transport received written notice of their allocation to a “relatives transport” (Angehörigentransport) and orders to report to the quarantine site (Schleuse) located at the Hamburg barracks, on the evening of October 5. During the period of quarantine, the Jewish Council was able to arrange for provisions and supplies On October 6, a memorandum was sent to the house and block elders, notifying them that some of those selected for transport had failed to report to the Schleuse, and warning that failure to report would have severe consequences....