Transport from Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 28/04/1943

On April 28, 1943 the 14th transport departed from Thessaloniki. A total of approximately 2,930 Jews were included in this transport. “We numbered about 90-100 people per car, they were freight cars. In each car there were children, elderly people, pregnant women. We all sat together in the cars. The journey lasted 4-5 days; all we had with us was the food we had taken from the ghetto. There was water in each car and a bucket that was used for our necessities…When we arrived in Birkenau they opened one car at a time. A special truck came to get the elderly, the women and children. They had to stand. There were two [trucks], one going and one coming back”, recalls Yaacov Alcheh. The Jews arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau on May 4. Jacko (Avraam Yaakov) Ezrati recalls the conditions on the transport: “There was no room to move. When someone got up to relieve himself there was very little room. Life in the wagon was unbearable. We suffered for 6 days and 6 nights and finally we reached Auschwitz. It was a cold winter morning at 4 am when the doors opened”. Upon arrival at Auschwitz, 220 men were admitted into the camp and tattooed with the numbers 119781-120000. 318 women were also admitted and tattooed with the numbers 43779-44096. The remaining Jews were murdered in the gas chambers immediately upon arrival.