Transport from Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 31/07/1942

From lists that were reconstructed after World War II by the NIOD (Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie—the Dutch Institute for War Documentation), it is known that there were 1,007 Jews in a transport that set out from Westerbork on July 31, 1942. The NIOD based its information on manifests issued by the Dutch national railroad company (Nederlandse Spoorwegen). A copy of the complete deportation manifest was discovered in a letter sent by the LIRO-Bank on September 21, 1942, to the General Secretary for Economic Affairs (Generalkommissar für Finanz und Wirtschaft) in The Hague. Once the Jews reached Westerbork, employees of the bank dispossessed them of their remaining money. The list also shows the names of forty-five men aged 19–48 who volunteered to join the transport. The names of twelve additional deportees who were added to the transport at the last moment appear as well. Among these the twins Elsje and Leentje Ketellapper are mentioned. They were born on December 25, 1941, and were the youngest of the deportees. The misapprehension of many Dutch Jews that the wave of transports beginning in July 1942 was meant to transport labor details to the East was based among other things, on the fact that only people aged 40 and below were being deported. In fact, however, older Jews were also sent away; Dagobert Berliner, for example (b. 1883 in Breslau) was the oldest deportee in this transport. On July 13, 1942, the Dutch railroad company issued a circular that was forwarded to the Higher SS- and Police-leader (HSSPF) in the Netherlands, demanding payment of costs relating to the deportation train. The circular provides data regarding transports from Hooghalen, the village that served as the departure point for transports of Jews who were interned in the Westerbork transit camp. The circular describes the route that the Dutch deportation trains followed as far as the German border from July 15 to the end of 1942. It stands to reason, however, that deportation trains used this route after 1942 as well. The train deadheaded left Groningen on Friday, July 31, 1942 and headed for Beilen where it arrived at 9:30 a.m. Still empty, it departed Beilen at 9:48 and headed northward to Hooghalen—about a ten-minute trip. There it stopped for a quarter of an hour to pick up the deportees. Then it continued to Nieuweschans located on the German border. The circular also informs us that the train switched at Onnen station to a freight line which it followed until the next stop at Waterhuizen. Afterwards, the train continued via Bremen, Hamburg or Hannover, Berlin, Liegnitz [Legnica], Breslau [Wroclaw], Oppeln [Oppole], Cosel [Koźle], and Katowice [Kattowitz] to Auschwitz....