Transport 27, Train Da 13 from Berlin, Berlin (Berlin), City of Berlin, Germany to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 29/01/1943

This transport was the 27th to leave Berlin for the ghettos and killing sites in Eastern Europe and was thus designated “Osttransport 27”. It departed from the city’s Putlitzstrasse Station in the Moabit district at 17:20 on January 29, 1943 and arrived at Auschwitz the following day at 10:48. There were 1,004 Jews on this transport, among them an unknown number of elderly and weak Jews who were brought to Berlin from Cologne, apparently in two transports on January 15 and January 21. 67 of them were part of this transport. Another 17 were brought from Berlin to Theresienstadt on the same day on transport I/179 which comprised of 100 people. 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 freight cars. This train was designated special train DA13. 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. Historian Danuta Czech notes in the Auschwitz Chronicles that a transport organized by the RSHA arrived in Auschwitz on January 30. It consisted of 1,000 Jewish men, women and children originating from Berlin. Upon arrival outside the Auschwitz camp complex, the deportees were subject to a selection process carried out by the SS. 140 men, given Nos. 97685-97824, and 140 women, given Nos. 32744-32883 were sent to forced labour under harsh conditions which they rarely survived. The remaining 724 deportees were sent directly to the gas chambers at Birkenau (Auschwitz II) and murdered. According to historian Rita Meyhoefer none of the deportees, including those initially selected as“able bodied”, are known to have survived.