Transport from Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 04/12/1942

On Friday December 4, 1942, the first day of Hanukah, the Jewish feast of lights, the 40th mass transport from the Netherlands departed from Westerbork for Auschwitz. During the period between July 24 1942 and March 10, 1943 old passenger trains were used to deport Jews from the Netherlands to Auschwitz. The Nederlandse Spoorwegen (the Dutch Railways) provided the trains and sent a bill for every transport to Wilhelm Harster. The Nederlandse Spoorwegen made an estimated profit of more than 400,000 Dutch guilders from the transports. The train comprised 12 cars and carried 811 deportees. More than half of the deportees were over 55 years of age and, according to Guus Luijters, the author of ‘In Memoriam’, a work dedicated to the deported and murdered children from the Netherlands, there were 114 children on this transport....