Transport XXIII from Caserne Dossin (Malines-Mechelen), Camp, Belgium to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 15/01/1944

Transport XXIII from Mechelen to Auschwitz left on January 15, 1944 and comprised 659 deportees (344 men and 315 women). It was the first transport to leave in 1944 and with a considerable lower number of deportees than the previous mass transports. It included 56 children. A relatively high number of people, i.e. 97 were over the age of 50. It took the SiPo-SD nearly four months to complete the deportation list which was begun on September 22, 1943. It left together with transport Z2 (the "Z" is an abbreviation for "Zigeuner", the German word for "gypsies"), a special transport comprised of 351 Roma and Sinti whose cars were coupled to the same train. By spring 1943 most of the Jews in Belgium had gone into hiding. The SiPo-SD therefore abstained from mass raids and relied instead on special arresting squads consisting of local SD staff members and detectives who were sent from Berlin, in addition to members of the Flemish SS, and Feldgendarmerie. A host of collaborators were also recruited to the task, specifically bounty hunters who, in 1942, received 100 Belgian francs (BEF) per Jew and, in 1943, 200 BEF. The Sipo-SD found it difficult to provide a constant flow of Jews into the camp. This is also shown by the numbers of arrests per day between the fall of 1942 and the spring 1944. It constantly declined in Brussels from 41 to 8 and in Antwerp from 67 to 2....