Transport II/26, Train Da 518 from Nuernberg, Nürnberg (Nürnberg), Bavaria, Germany to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 23/09/1942

In the month of September 1942 the Gestapo launched two large transports from Nuremberg and Würzburg to Theresienstadt, consisting of 1681 Jews altogether. This was the fifth transport from Nuremberg and the second to Theresienstadt. An extensive collection of files from the Würzburg Gestapo office concerning the deportation survived the war. This transport is one of the few whose details about the organizational procedures and the participating officers are available, as are many files documenting how the Gestapo dealt with questions weeks before the actual deportation, as well as the fate of individual deportees. On August 27, 1942 Theodor Grafenberger, deputy to the Chief of Police of Nuremberg and head of Department II at Nuremberg’s Gestapo, which dealt – amongst others - with Jewish affairs ordered the Würzburg branch of Nuremberg’s Gestapo office to organize and carry out the transport. The Würzburg office closely coordinated the procedure with the State Police branch in Regensburg. The mayors of Aschaffenburg and Schweinfurt and the Landräte in Gerolzhofen, Kitzingen, Schweinfurt and Würzburg were informed of the imminent “evacuation” of the Jews....