Transport, Train Da 36 from Kassel, Kassel (Kassel), Hesse-Nassau, Germany to Riga, Ghetto, Latvia on 09/12/1941

The transport left Kassel on December 9, 1941, and was the first of three transports to leave the city. The transport was concealed as a work assignment and was organized by the Kassel Gestapo under the direction of Karl Lüdcke and his deputy Otto Altekrüger. Preparations for this transport had already begun November. On November 4, the Reich Ministry for Finance had instructed the finance president on the deportation and the subsequent exploitation of the deported Jews. Up to 1,034 Jews – men, women, children and infants from around 40 various towns and villages were on this transport. The youngest deportee we know of had just turned three months old. The deportees from Kassel and its surroundings were joined by Jews from several other administrative districts like Eschwege, Frankenberg, Marburg, and Melsungen. The persons considered eligible for deportation were all those defined as Jews according to the Nuremberg laws. Jews who were married to non-Jewish partners, as well as their children, and Jews who were employed in the German armament industry were excluded from deportation at this time. Jews over the age of 65, war invalids, or veterans of World War I decorated with the Iron Cross would be sent to the Ghetto Theresienstadt (Terezin) in June 1942, and were thus also still exempt from deportation....