Transport IX/3 from Breslau, Breslau (Breslau), Silesia (Lower), Germany to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 24/02/1943

The deportation of the elderly Jews of Breslau to transit camps in the rural areas of Lower Silesia had already begun in July 1941, instigated by an edict from the Head of the regional NSDP branch (“Gauleiter”) Karl Hanke. In the autumn of 1941, Alfred Hampel, head of the Department of Jewish Affairs in the Breslau State Police Office, traveled to Berlin where he received guidelines and documents concerning the deportation of Jews to the East.
Transport IX/3 departed from the Odertor train station on February 24 1943, and arrived at Theresienstadt on the same day. It was the third of 12 transports consisting of elderly and otherwise privileged Jews from the province of Lower Silesia. The transport included 102 Jews, residents of Breslau and other cities and towns of Lower Silesia who had been deported some months earlier to the transit camp at the monastery of Grüssau (Krzeszów). Some of the deportees had been previously deported to another Lower Silesian transit camp which was located in Tormersdorf north of Görlitz, and had been shut down a few months earlier.
Little is known about this transport. Presumably, the residents were brought to Breslau by train, and detained at an assembly site. Based on the information available, it may be assumed that this was either the hall of the Society of Friends at Neue Graupenstrasse, or the courtyard of the “Storch” Synagogue and Jewish community offices at Wallstrasse. There, they were guarded by uniformed police. They were questioned by officers from the Department of Jewish Affairs, representatives of the Regional Financial Office of Lower Silesia, legal clerks and officials from the District Government. Those who had not done so already were forced to sign a declaration relinquishing their entire property to the State. Their apartments had already been taken over following their deportation to Grüssau. Officers of the Criminal Police and the Gestapo conducted body searches and examined luggage for money and valuables which were confiscated upon discovery. Sometimes the deportees would undergo mock physical examinations by the Gestapo officers....