Transport from Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands to Bergen Belsen, Camp, Germany on 15/02/1944

The transport that set out on February 15, 1944 from Westerbork to Bergen Belsen was the ninth that left Westerbork that year. It was preceded by two other transports to Bergen Belsen, two to Auschwitz, one to Theresienstadt, and three smaller transports, one each to Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, and Kreuzburg. According to the deportation manifest, 773 Jews were sent out in this transport—at least 59 of them from Germany, as well as 155 children. Several subgroups are also distinguishable. One was composed of 9 Jews who had worked in the diamond industry. They had long been considered protected from deportation and in Bergen Belsen the Nazis planned to establish an industrial area in order to exploit the knowledge of the Jewish diamantaires. The plan was never implemented; most of the diamond workers were soon sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp where they died....