Transport 2 from Wien, Vienna, Austria to Kielce, Kielce, Kielce, Poland on 19/02/1941

Transport number 2 from Vienna (Wien) left Aspangbahnhof for Kielce in Poland on February 19th, 1941. The transport consisted of 1,005 Jews, 308 of them were older than 61 years. The average age of the deportees was 51. On arrival at Kielce, the deportees were housed with local Jewish families. On March 31st, a Jewish ghetto was established in Kielce, into which the deportees from Vienna were also forced. The ghetto was liquidated between August 20th and August 24th, 1942. About 21,000 of its inhabitants were murdered in a death camp, while around 2,000 Jews who were fit for work were transported to the labor camps in Blizyn, Pionki and Skarzysko-Kamienna. The remaining Jews were sent to Auschwitz in August 1944, a small group transferred later on to Buchenwald. No more than 18 Jews who had arrived in Kielce from Vienna on this transport survived the Holocaust. In mid March 1941, Gestapo head Heinrich Mueller, notified the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna that the transports were to be stopped due to fierce opposition by the German rulers in the General Government, as well as increased military preparations for Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. This development led to other "resettlement"-plans being called off by the General Government.