Transport VI/1 from Hamburg, Hansestadt Hamburg (Hamburg), Hansa City of Hamburg, Germany to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 15/07/1942

Three transports were sent from Hamburg during that month, one destined for Auschwitz and two for Theresienstadt. On board these two trains were many members of the Jewish community, which had been dissolved and incorporated into the "Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland" (Reich Association of Jews in Germany) on August 1, 1942. Among the deportees to Theresienstadt were Rabbi Dr. Joseph Norden and Jewish Council member Dr. Walter Rudolphi. Both men were re-deported to Auschwitz in the autumn of 1944 and murdered there. With just seven transports between autumn 1941 and summer 1942, the Jewish community of Hamburg was stripped of more than 75% of its members, including most of its leadership.
The first transport from Hamburg to Theresienstadt left the Hannoversche Bahnhof on July 15, 1942 and arrived on July 16. There were 926 deportees on board. Among them were Jews from the surrounding areas of Hamburg including Oldenburg (at least 10), Friedrichsstadt (5), Wilhelmshaven (8), Cuxhaven (2), Aurich (3), Wesermünde (2), Kiel (2) and Norden (2). Historian Alfred Gottwald notes that the group of people originating from places outside Hamburg probably numbered up to 200. They were brought to the building of the elementary school in Schanzenstrasse, which served as an assembly site. The luggage was limited to 50 kilograms and everything else had to be left behind. At the assembly site the deportees had to undergo a humiliating search, fill out an inventory of their property, and sign a document transferring ownership of all their remaining assets to the German Reich.
The Gestapo used the three deportations in July 1942 (the first to Auschwitz, the second and third to Theresienstadt) to empty the buildings of the Warburg housing trust, which had been transformed into "Judenhäuser" ("Jewish buildings"). After the inhabitants had been deported, the buildings were surrendered to the State. In an Interview conducted in 1992, Ingrid Wecker (protected from deportation due to her status as a daughter of a "mixed marriage") recalled the preparations for the transports to Theresienstadt:...