Transport from Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 18/01/1943

The transport that departed from Westerbork for Auschwitz on January 18, 1943, was the 44th (denoted ‘VIL’ in Roman numerals) to have left the camp. A pamphlet published by the Dutch Red Cross in October 1953 about the deportation of Dutch Jews to Auschwitz in 1943 presents detailed statistics regarding the age and sex of the passengers in this transport and indicates that no one survived. From lists reconstructed by the NIOD (Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Dutch Institute for Historical Documentation) after World War II, it is known that 748 people were deported on this transport; 44 of them were prisoners (Häftlinge) and 9 were added at the last moment. Sophia Annie Jacobson (b. 1926) and her parents were among the deportees, apparently added to the transport because Sophia’s maternal grandmother was on board as well. According to internal correspondence of the Joodse Raad in Amsterdam dated Friday January 15, 1943, a transport of 800 persons was scheduled to depart on the upcoming Monday. It was at this time – on January 13 – that Jews were first sent to the Vught camp, starting with 250 from the camp in Amersfoort, who had been working for the Wehrmacht (the German army) and had been exempt from deportation until then. On January 16, 450 others were sent from the assembly site at the Dutch theater (Hollandsche Schouwburg) to Vught; they, too, had been exempt from deportation until that time for the same reason. One of those aboard the January 18 transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz was Leonard David Frank (b. 1903) who had worked for the Economics Department of the Joodse Raad. He parted with his comrades by saying, “It was an honour to have worked with my colleagues. I feel they did everything possible in the matter”—i.e., that they attempted to prevent his deportation. Another known deportee was Max Levenbach (b. 1884), one of the main organizers of professional chess in the Netherlands. Their names and the brief quotation above are mentioned in a summary of the Joodse Raad meeting held on January 14, 1943....