Transport, Train Da 6 from Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt a. Main (Wiesbaden), Hesse-Nassau, Germany to Lodz, Ghetto, Poland on 20/10/1941

Deportation train "Da 6" from Frankfurt to the Lodz ghetto was the first transport to leave the city. Jakob Sprenger, Gauleiter (district party leader) of Hesse-Nassau, had set himself the task to make his Gau (the Nazi equivalent to province or state) and especially Frankfurt “judenfrei” (Free of Jews) as quickly as possible. The train, which had been used for the first transport from Prague to Lodz on October 16, 1941 and had been directed back as empty train "LpDa102" via Erfurt to Frankfurt South on October 20, 1941, departed Frankfurt instantly and arrived in Lodz one day later, on October 21, 1941. This occurred before the Wannsee-conference in January 1942. The implementation of this deportation was more chaotic than those transports that were to follow and it was carried out with the help of the local SA, which would not be the case thereafter. The deportation register of the Frankfurt Gestapo lists 1,125 names for this transport from Frankfurt. Indeed between 1,113 and 1,180 Jews were deported in October to Lodz. Among the deportees were whole families with children, elderly people above 65, and veterans of WWI. In an independent action, following a secret directive from the Dusseldorf Gestapo dated October 11, 1941, the Frankfurt Gestapo also deported Jews who worked as slave labourers in the German armament industry. In doing so, they infringed upon RSHA deportation orders and upset the industry, which did not want to lose its cheap workforce. The RHSA guidelines stated, that Jews employed by the armament industry, living in mixed marriages, Jews of foreign nationality (except Polish or Luxembourg citizens) and those above the age of 68 were to be exempt from the transport....