Transport from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Gross Rosen, Schweidnitz (Breslau), Silesia (Lower), Germany on 11/01/1944

Dr. Vilem Kauders (Wilhelm Klima, b. 1906) had been taken from Prague to Theresienstadt on December 4, 1941. On November 1, 1944, he was transported to the concentration camp Gross Rosen in Lower Silesia. It has been surmised that he was accompanied by Dr. Bedrich (Fritz) Goldschmied (b. 1900) who had also been taken from Prague to Theresienstadt on March 9, 1943. Besides this information taken from their prisoner cards, kept at the ITS Arolsen archive, we know very little about the fate of these two Jewish scientists. According to the book "University over the Abyss", Gerda Haas gives a witness account from the ghetto: "One day, the two [Kauders and Goldschmied] were ordered to prepare themselves to leave Theresienstadt. Their suitcases were to be cleaned of any signs and numbers, yellow stars were torn off. They were told that they would be employed for a large industrial concern in Germany. Their dependents stayed in Terezin. Soon, Kauders sent a postcard saying that he was in [Gross Rosen], where he was freezing terribly and where he worked on his books all day." It is still not clear today how the scientists were transported and how many other Jews at Theresienstadt shared a similar fate during the last days of the ghetto....