Transport Z1 from Caserne Dossin (Malines-Mechelen), Camp, Belgium to Ravensbrück, Camp, Germany on 13/12/1943

Until September 1943, only foreign Jews who came from countries that were occupied by Nazi Germany, and German Jews who were now considered stateless, were deported from Belgium. On September 20 the first transport with Belgian Jews left for Auschwitz. Jews who came from Axis countries as well as from Neutral countries were still exempt from deportation. One of these neutral countries was Turkey. On February 23, 1943 Werner von Bargen, a representative of the Foreign office in Brussels, advised the military administration in Belgium and Northern France that: ‘the Turkish Jews living in Belgium and Northern France are to be subject to the anti-Jewish laws with immediate effect, but […] expulsion [that is, deportation] will not be carried out for the time being.’ On September 23, 1943, head of the Gestapo Heinrich Müller gave instructions regarding the treatment of the foreign Jews to all Gestapo headquarters, including the Sipo-SD headquarter in Brussels. He wrote that Jews coming from any of the 10 Axis or neutral countries including Hungary, Romania, Spain and Turkey were to be deported subsequent to the ‘Heimschaffungsaktion’. In this operation Germany gave these countries an ultimatum to repatriate their Jewish citizens. Müller also remarked that it would be impossible to deport these Jews to the East for political reasons, and therefore the men were to be deported to Buchenwald, while the children and women were to be deported to Ravensbrück....