Transport VI/9 from Hamburg, Hansestadt Hamburg (Hamburg), Hansa City of Hamburg, Germany to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 19/01/1944

The ninth transport from Hamburg to Theresienstadt left the city on January 19, 1944. It consisted of 61 Jews. It was the only regular transport from Hamburg in 1944. All other deportations that left the city during that year were so called "Einzeltransporte" (single transports) that held between one and five Jews. A letter from the office of the "trustee" in Hamburg to the central offices of the "Reichsvereinigung der Juden" in Berlin dated 17.02.1944 states that the Gestapo planned to include 78 people in this transport and that the Jewish administration was notified of the forthcoming deportation on January 18 at approximately 11am. The deportees were ordered to report to the Talmud-Tora school, which served as the assembly site, at 1pm on the following day. At the collection point their luggage, which was limited to 50 kilograms, was searched. They were forced to provide an inventory of their property and to sign a document transferring all their remaining assets to the Reich. During their last hours in Hamburg, the Jewish community supplied the deportees with a warm meal and they were handed food rations for the journey. The letter notes that the deportees came from various areas including "remote suburbs" and that due to the very short period between the order and the deportation, the Jewish administration had to hire drivers to make sure that the luggage was delivered in time. The document also states that not all of the 78 Jews on the transport list were deported with the transport. The Reichsbahn provided 3 freight cars that were attached to a regular train. Two of these were used for the deportees, while the third held two separate areas for the guards and the luggage....