Transport XXIII/2 from Danzig, Danzig, Free City of Danzig to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 15/12/1942

This transport departed from Danzig on December 15, 1942 and arrived at Theresienstadt on 17 December 1942. It was the second of four transports sent from Danzig to Theresienstadt during the years 1942-1944, the first having departed several days earlier. This transport consisted of 56 Jews, residents of the building at Mausegasse, inhabitants of the old-age home at Milchkannengasse who did not join the previous transport, and two women from Elbing. Many of the deportees were over 70 years old. The youngest deportee was 14 year-old Nathan Broner, who converted to Christianity two months prior to the transport. However, his conversion was overruled by the Gestapo, and he was forced to return to the building at Mausegasse. The leader of the Jewish community of Danzig, David Jonas, received the deportation orders from the Gestapo. The Gestapo arrived at the building at Mausegasse and ordered the residents to get ready for their upcoming deportation. They were allowed to hastily pack some luggage, but upon inspection many pieces of luggage were confiscated and brought later to the Committee for Facilitating Jewish Emigration. The deportees were then loaded into trucks. Presumably they were taken to the Main Train Station (Danzig Hauptbahnhof), and were put into a railway car connected to a regular passenger train. The deportees stayed in the car for two days and eventually arrived at the Bohusovice train station, north of Prague. The deportees were taken off the train and those unable to walk were forced by the awaiting SS personnel and Czech gendarmerie into trucks that took them the approximate 3 kilometers to Theresienstadt; the others were forced to walk, carrying their hand luggage....