Transport from Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands to Sobibor, Extermination Camp, Poland on 06/07/1943

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 WWII. This extremely high death toll was due to the nature of this site which was designed solely as an annihilation camp. Following the arrival of a transport, most deportees were rapidly stripped of their clothes, the women's hair was cut and then they were forced into gas chambers camouflaged as showers, and murdered. The 17th transport destined for Sobibor departed from Westerbork transit camp on July, 6 1943. It consisted of 2,417 deportees. There are no survivors from this transport.