This Transport departed from the Oppeln train station on November 18, 1943 and arrived at Theresienstadt on the same day It was the eighth of 10 transports comprising of elderly Jews and others from the province of Upper Silesia who had until now been protected from deportation. This was marked a Special Transport, consisting of a single deportee: 46 year-old Magdalena Pfend nee Braun, who was listed as a resident of Hirschberg im Riesengebirge.
Little is known of Special Transports such as this one. Presumably, several days prior to the deportation, Mrs. Pfend was notified by the Gestapo. She was ordered to report to an assembly point in Oppeln, to settle her bills and debts, and bring up to 10kg of luggage and the keys to her apartment.
In the assembly point, Mrs. Pfend was duly registered and forced to sign a declaration relinquishing her entire property to the state. Later, she was taken to the Main Train Station (Hauptbahnhof) in Oppeln through a main street, escorted by Gestapo personnel or uniformed police. At the train station, she was put under guard in either a passenger car or a prisoner car which was connected to a regular passenger train. The train’s route was presumably to Breslau, from there to Dresden and finally to the recently-constructed train station in Theresienstadt....