Transport from Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 20/09/1943

The transport that departed from Westerbork to Auschwitz on September 21, 1943 carried 979 Jewish deportees, including some who had been sent from Vught to Westerbork that month: 327 people had been transferred to the latter camp on September 11, an additional 318 on September 16, and 300 others on September 20. The deportees who had been delivered to Westerbork on September 20 spent only a short time there before continuing to Auschwitz with the other deportees. One of these deportees, Bassa Kuit-Nord (b. 1920), testified before the NIOD (Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie – the Dutch Institute for War Documentation) in Utrecht on July 10, 1947, that those in this contingent had managed to be recorded in Westerbork and received some oatmeal and coffee before the train set out again. Jews who had reached Westerbork previously were also deported via Vught. Martha van Gelder de Lange (b. 1917) testified in Utrecht on July 27, 1945, that she had been sent to Westerbork with her husband, Bernhard van Gelder, on July 3, 1943, in a transport comprising 1,600 people, and had stayed at the transit camp until their deportation to Auschwitz. Another deportee who had previously been moved from Vught to Westerbork was the only infant born in that camp, Machiel Prins. Born prematurely on May 31, 1943, he had been taken to Westerbork in the “children’s transport” on June 6, but when the transport continued to Sobibór, Prins was left behind in Westerbork due to his frailty. The commander of Westerbork, Albert Gemmeker, ordered an incubator delivered to the camp from Gronigen, recruited a pediatrician and nurses to care for the baby, and oversaw these measures personally. As soon as Prins grew sufficiently and weighed 3 kg., he was deported to Auschwitz along with his mother in the transport that departed on September 21, 1943. There were also several Jews among the deportees in this transport who had been sent to Westerbork after a stint at the assembly site in the Dutch Theatre (De Hollandse Schouwburg)....