Transport from Amsterdam, Noordholland, The Netherlands to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 25/05/1943

On May 25, 1943, about four weeks after the first transport from the Netherlands to Theresienstadt set out, an “Individual Transport” (Einzelreisende) headed for the same destination. It reached Theresienstadt on May 27 and was entered into the ghetto records as Transport XXIV/1 Ez. The deportees were Friedrich Bernhard Gutmann and his wife, Louise Gutmann von Landau, both classified as “special cases” (Sonderfälle). Baron Friedrich Bernhard Gutmann was a banker. His father, a founder of the Dresdner Bank, had converted to Christianity in the late 19th century. As members of the German financial aristocracy, the Gutmanns enjoyed relations among the European political and social elite. Friedrich’s sister was the wife of Baron Orsini of Florence, a former Italian ambassador to Berlin, and Friedrich Gutmann himself was a friend of the Italian Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, and other Italian prominent figures. Gutmann’s daughter was also married to a member of the nobility in Florence. The Gutmanns, moved to the Netherlands from Germany after 1920. When Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands on May 15, 1940, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Reichskommissar for the occupied Dutch territories, issued instructions concerning well-known personalities who had connections with Allied countries of importance to Berlin. For this reason, Gutmann’s relations with the Italian diplomatic corps and the couple’s vast wealth assured their protection and entitled them to extra privileges. Even so, the Nazis cast eyes on their property. After their efforts to leave the Netherlands failed, relatives in Italy exerted their influence within diplomatic circles. Senator Baron Orsini asked the Vatican to intervene to assure the Gutmanns’ safety and the Italian Foreign Minister also attempted to step in. The Italian Ambassador to Berlin, Dino Alfieri, went even further: he approached SS chief Heinrich Himmler, who spoke with the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. After this talk, Himmler wrote, albeit vaguely, that no harm would befall the Gutmanns; he even broached the possibility of their emigration to Italy....