Transport Dn from Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 05/10/1943

The children were housed in wooden barracks in Kreta, a separate section of the ghetto, and were assigned a team of 54 caretakers from the medical personnel and youth councilors in Theresienstadt. The residents of Theriesienstadt were instructed, under threat of death, not to make contact with the children or the caretakers. The ghetto population was under the impression that the children and their caretakers would be sent abroad, to Switzerland or to Palestine. The caretakers were apparently forced to sign a declaration that was meant to give credence to that lie. Karl Löwenstein claims these were declarations of confidentiality regarding their experience in Theresienstadt, whereas Gonda Redlich claims these were declarations not to take up arms against the German Reich. On October 5, 1943, six weeks after their arrival, the children were taken out of their barracks and marched to the Bauschowitz (Bohusovice) train station, some 3 km from Theresienstadt. Like their arrival, their departure was also conducted in secret. Peter Hecht, who was sent by the Jewish Council to observe the transport, testified to having seen the children being brutally pushed into eight overcrowded cattle cars in Bohusovice by the camp guards and by the head of the Czech gendarmes....