Transport from Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands to Sobibor, Extermination Camp, Poland on 01/06/1943

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 15th transport destined for Sobibor departed from Westerbork transit camp on June 1, 1943. This was a relatively large transport comprising 3,006 deportees. The sole survivor of this transport was Jules Schevis who published his memoirs about his experience during the Holocaust, as well as a study of the Sobibor death camp. His account of the Journey from the Netherlands and the arrival at Sobibor is the most detailed description known: “We left barrack 58 in the pouring rain […] the train was so long that I could not see the locomotive. At the back, where I stood, there was a carriage with provisions. As it turned out, these were meant for the guards. A passenger car closed the ranks of the train […] The parents of a baby had problems trying to hoist the pram into the carriage. When they finally succeeded, it was our turn to board the train. Before we got into the wagon, two barrels were shoved in. One contained drinking water the other one was empty. It was meant to serve as a latrine. There were no facilities on this train. No straw, no mattresses on the floor for the elderly, the invalids or the children, no pegs to hang our things on - nothing."...