Transport 17. Osttransport (Welle XX) from Berlin, Berlin (Berlin), City of Berlin, Germany to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 11/07/1942

The transport left Berlin for Auschwitz-Birkenau on July 11, 1942. It was the 17th transport departing the city for the East and was therefore called the 17 "Osttransport". After the first mass deportation had left Berlin for Riga already on October 18, 1941, this was the first direct transport from Berlin to the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The transport was the Welle XX (20th Wave) of over 60 transports to the East, which all together drove more than 35,000 Jews from Berlin to ghettos and extermination sites in Eastern Europe.
According to a copy of the transport list from the Berlin Gestapo which was used in the post-war trial against the former head of the Berlin Gestapo Otto Bovensiepen, and other members of the RSHA, 210 Jews from Berlin were deported on July 11, at least 10 of whom were from Potsdam. The men, women and children on this transport, some of whom had been moved from smaller towns to Berlin shortly before deportation, are listed only by deportation number which replaced their civil identity. Two persons (Nos. 116 and 162) are crossed out on the list and replaced with Nos. 211 and 212. If one or more of the deportees committed suicide, went into hiding or managed to evade the transport, the Nazi-authorities would ensure that other Jews took their place.
The department for Jewish Affairs at the Berlin Gestapo, headed by SS-Untersturmführer Gerhard Stübs and his deputy Kriminaloberinspektor Franz Prüfer, was in charge of organizing the transports together with the Department of Jewish Affairs in the RSHA (IVB4). The task of compiling lists of deportees was given to the representatives of the Berlin Jewish community. They were forced to choose several thousand names from their register. The Jewish community was also required to take care of the deportees’ basic food supplies and essentials for the journey....