Transport XI from Caserne Dossin (Malines-Mechelen), Camp, Belgium to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 26/09/1942

Transport XI left Mechelen on September 26, 1942 on the first day of Sukkot, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. It carried 1,742 deportees (793 men and 949 women). This was the first transport after the RSHA had ramped up the deportation numbers for Belgium to 20,000 and pushed for an accelerated deportation quota by the end of October. This new course of action resulted from a meeting held on August 28, in Berlin between the Jewish Affairs Offices of each occupied country and Adolf Eichmann and his staff. Eichmann announced that originally it had been decided to deport all remaining stateless Jews of each country by the end of the year. However, since the German National Railway (Reichsbahn) was unable to supply the required means of transportation during the months of November, December and January, it would be necessary to complete this deportation wave by the end of October. Transport XI was the largest transport of all the deportation trains from Mechelen to Auschwitz, including 467 children under the age of 15. It was assembled between September 16 and September 25 and consisted of deportees from the last large–scale action of the Sipo-SD in Antwerp which marked the end of the mass arrests. The raid on September 11 and 12 which was conducted at night and in daylight hours drew strong protest from parts of the public and from within the Belgium police against Chief of Police Jozef De Potter and pressure to refrain from executing further raids. The Germans subsequently changed their strategy. They appealed to the Flemish Fascist collaborators such as the Volksverwering (The People's Defense) and the Algemene SS-Vlaanderen to become more involved in the hunt for Jews, while simultaneously continuing their operations in a more clandestine manner. SS-Oberscharführer Erich Holm, the head of the Antwerp Department for Jewish Affairs and his deputy SS-Oberscharführer Karl Vierk set a trap at the Antwerp rationing services center on September 22. They knew when the Antwerp Jews, together with non-Jewish citizens, would present themselves in the municipal hall and in several former communal houses in the boroughs Borgerhout, Deurne and Berchem in order to get their food stamps. Holm and his staff, assisted by members of the Flemish SS, appeared incognito and, one by one, discreetly arrested everyone who presented Jewish identity papers. In this way, they managed to flush out a considerable number of Jews who had gone into hiding. The action lasted three days and provided Holm with 761 Jews for transport XI. A group of 57 Jews from Liège was added and a group of 27 Jews from Charleroi. The remainder of the deportees had been arrested individually or in small groups. The youngest deportee was 9 months old and the oldest was 86....