Transport from Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands to Sobibor, Extermination Camp, Poland on 10/03/1943

Very little is actually known about the train journey itself from the Netherlands to Sobibor. Out of a total of nearly 34,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands to Sobibor during the spring of 1943, only 19 survived the War. This extremely high death toll was due to the nature of this site which was designed solely as an extermination camp. Following the arrival of a transport, most deportees were rapidly stripped of their clothes, women's hair was cut and then they were forced into gas chambers camouflaged as showers, and murdered. The second transport destined for sobibor departed from Westerbork transit camp on March 10, 1943 and comprised 1,005 deportees. The deportees remained in Westerbork for 10 days, and then they were sent to Sobibor on a regular passenger train. Upon arrival, most of the deportees were immediately sent to the gas chambers and murdered. A few were selected for labour, and transferred to Lublin. This transport consisted of the largest known group of survivors from any Dutch transport: 13 women. In a post war account, Cate Polk, a nurse at the Jewish hospital in Rotterdam, recalls the events prior to deportation and the journey to the death camp:...