Transport 30 from Berlin, Berlin (Berlin), City of Berlin, Germany to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 26/02/1943

This transport was the 30th to leave Berlin for the ghettos and killing sites in Eastern Europe and was thus designated “Osttransport 30”. It departed from the city’s Putlitzstrasse Station in the Moabit district on February 26, 1943 and arrived in Auschwitz one day later. There were 913 Jews on this transport. 100 had been brought from Leipzig to Berlin on February 17, 77 Jews from Magdeburg, 6 from Schönebeck, 1 from Hamburg, 3 from Cologne, and one from Copenhagen. The department for Jewish Affairs at the Berlin Gestapo, headed by Walter Stock and his deputy Max Stark, was in charge of organising this transport together with the Department of Jewish Affairs at the RSHA. 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. 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 February 27. It consisted of 913 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. 156 men, given Nos. 104374-104529, and 106 women, given Nos. 36409-36514, were sent to forced labour under harsh conditions which they rarely survived. The remaining 651 deportees were sent directly to the gas chambers at Birkenau (Auschwitz II) and murdered. According to historian Rita Meyhoefer eleven of the deportees are known to have survived. In his post-war memoirs, Edgar Steinmetz, born in Berlin in 1919, recalled: "In mid-February 1943, I was detained by employees of the Jewish community in Berlin on behalf of the Gestapo and taken to an assembly camp (...) in Berlin. The reason for my arrest was not given to me. (...) We were beaten and abused. It mainly hit elderly people who did not, or could not, move fast enough. We knew nothing about our further destiny. We were supposed to be taken to a labour camp. (...) The freight cars were crowded, drinking water was not available, a fact that had an impact on both healthy and sick people, as well as children. Furthermore, upon disembarking, the prisoners were beaten and kicked by the guards. They were beaten with rifle butts and kicked with boots. I think we already had a corpse when we arrived at Auschwitz.” Dagobert Zymentstein, born in Berlin in 1910, remembered: "I was arrested by the Gestapo on a Saturday in 1943 at my work place in Berlin at the firm, Containers & Tubes (Behälter & Röhren). The Gestapo arrived in a truck. I and other colleagues were told to get in. (...) We were taken to an assembly camp. This assembly camp was a synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse in Berlin. When a certain number of people were assembled they were immediately transported to Poland. (...) An average of about 40 people were accommodated in a room measuring about 25 sq.m.. We were forced to sleep on the bare wooden floor, without mattresses or blankets. There was one toilet for every 40 persons. There was a sink. Towels and soap were not available. The food consisted of a bowl of soup with a slice of bread per day. This was distributed in the morning at around 11.00 o'clock. Medical care was not available. (...) During an air raid we had to stay in the rooms. (...) The room was locked and guarded. (...) There were also small infants among the detained persons. (...) I am familiar with cases where men, women and also children jumped out of the window in despair. I personally witnessed how these people jumped and remained lying on the pavement, and were then covered by policemen and carried into the house. (...) I also observed how prisoners at the deportation site were beaten with rifle butts and fists. The abuse was committed primarily by members of the SS and the Gestapo. Insults such as "Jude", "filthy pig" were nothing new. (...) At the railway station and on the way to the concentration camp there was no food whatsoever. I traveled for about 2 ½ days. Even women and children didn’t get any food or drink. There were also some seriously ill people, some of whom died during the transport. They were transferred to a separate wagon. Upon arrival, they were thrown on a truck and taken away. I in person witnessed this process. The railcars were not heated. (...) The transports were accompanied by members of the SS who were also present when the transport was unloaded. (...) This process took place under the most inhuman circumstances. (...) Anybody not moving fast enough was beaten by the SS men with a whip or struck otherwise. Shepherd dogs were also set on the prisoners".