Transport XVI/1, Train Da 517 from Weimar, Weimar (Weimar), Thuringia, Germany to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 19/09/1942

This transport departed from Leipzig on September 19, 1942 and arrived in Theresienstadt the following day. The train was designated “DA 517”. It was the first of 19 transports from Leipzig to Theresienstadt during the war, which were made up mainly of elderly Jewish deportees (Alterstransporte), and also the largest. There were between 877 and 880 people on this transport. Overall 19 transports travelled from Leipzig to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, including 12 Einzeltransporte (transports of individuals). With the exception of the Einzeltransporte, the transports that were recorded in Theresienstadt as having arrived from Leipzig did not originate in Leipzig. Rather, these trains came from places like Weimar and even as far as Frankfurt (am Main) and stopped in Leipzig en route to Theresienstadt to pick up the Jews from Leipzig and the vicinity. This train began its journey in Weimar (Thuringia) on September 19, 1942. In Weimar, the elderly Jews, who had been forced to live in "Judenhäusern" (houses designated for Jews), were taken to the train at the freight train station in Ettersburger Straße from the assembly site at Marstall. Among them were 60 elderly Jews who had been brought from Eisenach, as well as 13 Jews from Gera, one Jewish woman from Weida and an uncertain number of Jews from Nordhausen in Thuringia. Fifteen elderly people from Mühlhausen in Thuringia were also part of this transport. On September 19, 1942 they were brought from the assembly site at Bastmarkt on foot to the freight train station, from where they were presumably brought to Weimar. The oldest member of this group was 84 years old, the youngest 56. On September 4, 1942, a further deportation order was issued for nine Jews from the Thuringian city of Jena, which notified them of their upcoming deportation on September 19. One of the deportees, 80 year old Therese Zuckerkandl, committed suicide following receipt of this deportation order, the other eight were on this transport. It is unclear whether they joined the train in Leipzig or in Weimar....