Transport Eq from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 12/10/1944

The transport orders were handed down from the Office for Settlement of the Jewish Question in Prague to the camp commander Karl Rahm.. 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, these included any person up to the age of 65. This transport also included a large number of so-called “Prominent Jews”, well-known personages who until now had been protected from transportation. 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 9, a transport of 1,600 people left Theresienstadt. The next day, the people on the reserve list were summoned and counted and then ordered to report again for transport on October 12. During the night additional inmates were summoned and ordered to report to the quarantine site (Schleuse) at the Hamburg Barracks at midday on October 11. The luggage they were allowed to bring was to consist of no more than 30kg in two pieces of baggage per person, and was to contain no tools or washbowls. Those who were unable to carry their own luggage were able to make use of porters provided by the Transport Department of the Jewish Council. During the period of quarantine, the Jewish Council was able to arrange for provisions and supplies. On October 12, an urgent memorandum was sent to the house and block elders notifying them that boarding was to begin at 11:30. This transport, designated “Eq” was the seventh to leave Theresienstadt for Auschwitz in this final wave of 11 such transports. It departed from Theresienstadt on October 12, 1944, and arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau on October 14. On board were 1,500 men, women and children. On the day of the transport, an empty train arrived at the camp via the adjoining tracks built by Jewish prisoners in the summer of 1943. The inmates were loaded into the overcrowded railway cars. Historian Alfred Gottwaldt suggests that these latter transports from Thereseinstadt to Auschwitz were conducted using two trains of 25-30 freight cars each, which went back and forth between the camps. Trains from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz usually went north to Dresden, and then east to Breslau (Wroclaw) and Kattowitz (Katowice)....