Transport Et from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 23/10/1944

In previous transports, the transport orders were handed to the camp commander Karl Rahm by the Office for Settlement of the Jewish Question in Prague, who then ordered the Jewish administration of the ghetto to compile a transport list based on several criteria. However, by the time of this late transport, most of the Jewish administration had either already been sent away or were currently being transferred. According to historian H.G. Adler, the lists for the last two transports from Theresienstadt were compiled personally by camp commander Karl Rahm, by Ersnt Möhs of department IV B 4 of the RSHA who arrived from Berlin, and by Hans Günther of the Office for Settlement of the Jewish Question in Prague. This transport included many department heads in Theresienstadt. The only groups that retained protection from transports were old people over the age of 70, the Danish Jews and converted Dutch Jews. The finalized list was handed to Benjamin Murmelstein, head of the Jewish Council (Judenrat / jüdische Selbstverwaltung), who was tasked with assembling the transport. On October 20, the inmates on this transport received a summons ordering them to report to the quarantine site (“Schleuse”) at the Hamburg Barracks on the morning of October 22. They were allowed to bring no more than 30kg in two pieces of hand luggage per person which could contain no tools, buckets or washbowls. Those who were unable to walk would be transported to the quarantine site at noon on October 21. During quarantine, the remainder of the Jewish leadership was able to arrange for provisions and supplies, if only intermittently. On October 23, an urgent memorandum was sent to the house and block elders notifying them that boarding had begun. However, Adler mentions 30 people who received a summons but went underground to avoid the transport. They were arrested after the transport departed, and put on the next transport which departed several days later....