Transport XXI/1 from Opava, Opava, Moravia-Silesia, Czechoslovakia to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 18/11/1942

On November 18, 1942, the first transports left Opava (Troppau) to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. It consisted of 57 elderly Jews, residents of Opava, Krnov (Jägerndorf), Novy Jicin (Neutitschein) and other towns and villages in the area. Very little is known about this transport. Like elsewhere within the Reich, the local branch of the Association of Jews in Germany was forced to cooperate with the Nazi authorities in organizing the transports. It is assumed that the deportees were driven in buses or trucks. In the Theresienstadt Ghetto listings the transport was recorded as XX/1 where the Roman numeral XX refers to the area of Opava. According to the Theresienstadt ghetto listings, 40 of the deportees on this transport died in Theresienstadt of hunger and disease. Nine were deported from Theresienstadt to the extermination camps and killing sites in the East, where they were murdered. Only eight of the people on this transport are known to have survived in the ghetto until the end of the war.