Transport XVIII/5 from Oppeln, Oppeln (Oppeln), Silesia (Upper), Germany to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 21/04/1943

By April 1943, the great majority of the Upper Silesian Jews had already been deported. The elderly were sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto in the winter of 1942, and those Jews who were not protected by employment with the Jewish community or by marriage to a non-Jewish partner were sent to the Lublin district and to the Auschwitz extermination camp in the summer of 1942 and the early spring of 1943. This Transport departed from the Oppeln train station on April 21, 1943 and arrived at Theresienstadt on the same day It was the fifth of 10 transports comprising of elderly Jews and others from the province of Upper Silesia who had until now been protected from deportation. It was the last transport from Oppeln which carried more than 10 deportees. The transport consisted of 46 Jews, residents of the Upper Silesian cities of Oppeln and Ratibor, and towns of Bad Ziegenhals and Loebschuetz. Many of the deportees were elderly persons over 65 years old; others were decorated war veterans and their families. Among the deportees were Gisela Sachs and Bertha Glücksmann, secretaries to the head of what remained of the Jewish community in Oppeln. Georg Wiener and Eugen Schlesinger, the last two members of the community’s board of trustees to remain in Oppeln, were also on this transport. Several days prior to the deportation, the Jewish community received a list of deportees, and had to notify these individuals of their upcoming deportation. The deportees were ordered to report to the assembly point in the old animal market (“Bullenkeller”) at Malapanerstrasse or to another assembly site in Oppeln. They were ordered to settle their bills and debts, and bring up to 10kg of luggage and the keys to their apartments....