Transport 25 from Berlin, Berlin (Berlin), City of Berlin, Germany to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 14/12/1942

This transport was the 25th to leave Berlin for the ghettos and killing sites in Eastern Europe and was thus designated “Osttransport 25”. It departed from the city’s Putlitzstrasse Station in the Moabit district on December 14, 1942 and arrived at Auschwitz within one or two days. This transport was the last to leave Berlin for the East in the year 1942. There were 815 Jews on this transport. Whilst the majority of the deportees were Jews from Berlin, there were also 18 inmates from the Britz forest camp near Eberswalde and 37 Jewish youths between the ages of 12 and 21 from the Jewish youth home located at Rosenstrasse 2-4. The Jews were kept in assembly camps spread throughout Berlin for some days prior to deportation. At these assembly sites the Jews were forced to sign a declaration authorizing the transfer of their property to the State. On the day of their deportation the deportees were ordered into a train consisting of closed cattle cars. A guard unit, usually composed of two SS men, was usually posted in the control compartment. The train usually went to Auschwitz via Breslau (Wroclaw) and Kattowitz (Katowice), but the constant strain put on the German railway system might have caused individual transports to take other routes....