Transport from Strasshof, Lower Austria, Austria to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 08/03/1945

The transport left Strasshof an der Nordbahn, located 25 kilometers outside of Vienna (Wien) on March 8, 1945, and arrived in Theresienstadt on the same day. The transport consisted of 1,073 Jews from the Hungarian provinces who had been employed as forced laborers in the greater Vienna area, as well as in other provinces of Austria, including Niederdonau. The approaching Red Army forced the German authorities to evacuate Jewish prisoners from the areas near the front lines. However, There are several conflicting accounts regarding the circumstances in which these Jews were transferred to Theresienstadt: This group of Hungarian Jews was known as “Kastner’s Jews”. In the post war period, Hungarian Zionist activist, Rudolf Kastner, claimed that their fate was to be determined in negotiations he held with the SS. This decision might have been part of a late effort of several SS men to burnish their reputations. On February 24, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dieter Wisliceny informed Kastner that he had persuaded Adolf Eichmann not to kill all Jews in Theresienstadt, and that he had been appointed as camp commander. Wisliceny claimed that he intended to divert a transport consisting of 1,500 Jews from Vienna to Theresienstadt, where they were to be kept alive. The credibility of Wisliceny’s account remains doubtful. Upon arrival, the transport was listed in the ghetto records as IV/16. The Roman numeral IV/16....