Transport from Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 15/07/1942

Historian Houwink ten Cate claims that the first mass transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz on July 15, 1942 was compiled in a hurry, because a transport from France had not departed as planned and Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler was about to visit the extermination camp on July 17 and 18. As the figure of 962 deportees arriving by train from Amsterdam in Westerbork on July 15 was considerably smaller than the Germans had expected – they aimed to deport 4,000 Jews from the Netherlands between July 14 and 17 – the targeted quota was made up from Westerbork camp inmates. Fred Schwarz, who had been imprisoned in Westerbork with his brother from July 1940 on, writes in his memoires that the camp inmates were told that 100 men would be added to a transport from Amsterdam via Westerbork and that the selection was to be carried out by Erich Deppner, the camp commander. Schwarz, who was among the inmates helping the deportees, witnessed how "Deppner decided to put 50 orphans on the train. Jaques Schol [camp director] objected, but Deppner said they have children's homes over there as well. Their teacher, Salo Carlebach, decided to join the children. Deppner didn’t object." This observation is supported by historians like Jacob Presser. Schwarz then saw how the children and Carlebach were taken by truck to Hooghalen. A day before the transport, Carlebach had written a card to his friends at the camp, saying that he would be leaving the next day together with the children. A closer look at the age statistics of this transport by Aline Pennewaard has raised doubts whether these orphans were really among the deportees from Westerbork. Evidence is therefore inconclusive; however, we assume that the 'orphans' also included older children from Germany who were deported without their parents. The deportation list of the Zentralstelle was copied by representatives of the Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co Bank, who were present at Westerbork and who passed it on to Hans Fischböck, General Commissioner for Economic Affairs in the Netherlands, to whom the bank was accountable. The list for this transport reveals that at least 1,131 men, women and children were deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Most of them were unmarried, but whole families were deported, too. The youngest deportee, a new-born girl, was barely two months old when she was shipped away. Many German and Austrian Jews who were among the deportees were listed as "stateless" as they were stripped of their citizenship when they left Nazi-Germany. Most of the deportees are listed with Amsterdam as their last address. Some of the deportees came from ‘Aliyah’ and ‘Hachshara’ farms (vocational centers in preparation for Palestine)....