Transport 21 from Berlin, Berlin (Berlin), City of Berlin, Germany to Riga, Rigas, Vidzeme, Latvia on 19/10/1942

On October 19 all deportees were taken from the assembly camp to a freight station located on Putlitzstrasse/Quitzowstrasse in Berlin-Moabit. This usually happened in the early hours of the morning. The deportees were forced to walk about three kilometres to the station via Jagowstrasse, Alt-Moabit, Turmstrasse, Perleberger Strasse, Havelberger Strasse and Quitzowstrasse. Those unable to walk were taken there by truck. At the station third-class passenger cars ordered by the Gestapo and supplied by the Reichsbahn awaited them and the deportees were ordered to board the train. This transport departed on the same day. It was the 21st out of over 60 transports to the East (Osttransporte) which together took more than 35,000 Jews from Berlin to ghettos and extermination sites in Eastern Europe. It consisted of up to 962 men, women and children from Berlin. The average age of the deportees was 37. There were also 209 children under 15 on the transport, among them the ten-year-old brother of the later famous TV show host, entertainer, filmmaker, and member of the board of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Hans Rosenthal (1925 – 1987). Inmates from the police prison at Alexanderplatz were also aboard in a separate compartment. During the journey the Jews were guarded by a guard detail from the Schupo police. Their destination was not disclosed and after three days in overcrowded cars, they arrived at Skirotava station on the outskirts of Riga on October 22. From the transport, 81 men were singled out for their skills and sent to forced labour where they had to work under impossible conditions. According to historian Wolfgang Scheffler in 2002, only 17 of the deportees on this transport survived the war. All others were shot on October 22, 1942 in the Rumbula and Bikernieki forests shortly after their arrival....