Transport III/1 from Koeln, Köln (Köln), Rhine Province, Germany to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 15/06/1942

In June and July 1942 two special trains (Sonderzüge) went to Theresienstadt. This was the first transport to leave Cologne for Theresienstadt. It departed from the underground railway station Cologne-Deutz on June 15 and arrived in Theresienstadt on June 16, 1942. The transport consisted of 964 Jews, of whom 616 were women and 348 were men. The average age of the deportees was 69.3. The youngest was 4 years old and the oldest was an 89-year-old woman; 825 of them were between the ages of 61 and 90. They travelled via Chemnitz and Dresden to Bohusovice. From there the deportees had to walk to the ghetto. On June 13, 1942, the Cologne Gestapo official Franz Sprinz instructed the heads of the district authorities in Koeln, Bergisch Gladbach, Euskirchen, Bergheim, Siegburg and Gummersbach to provide Jews for evacuation. Further deportees came from the assembly camp in the Convent of Perpetual Adoration in Bonn-Endenich and from the assembly camp in Much near Cologne. Sprinz gave the order to bring the deportees to the fairgrounds in Cologne on June 14 by 2 pm. The deportees were transported to Cologne on trucks and buses and by train. A contemporary witness gave an account of Berta Stock’s deportation from Stommeln. He notes that "one day, a truck arrived. A lot of Jews were already standing on the truck's platform, crowded together, guarded by Gesatpo officers. Berta Stock was brought out of the house and was forced to climb across the open tailgate of the truck". In October 1944 Berta Stock was deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz where she was murdered....