Transport, Train Da 38 from Duesseldorf, Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf), Rhine Province, Germany to Riga, Ghetto, Latvia on 11/12/1941

On November 19, 1941, the head of the Jewish Affairs Desk at Gestapo headquarters in Düsseldorf advised the subdistrict heads about the plans for the deportation to Riga. The letter, signed by Dr. Kurt Venter, deputy chief of Gestapo-Düsseldorf, specified that the subdistrict leaders should inform headquarters by telephone of the number of Jews aged sixty-five and younger by November 22. The missive also stated that the plan was to bring them to Düsseldorf by December 10, and that further instructions would be forthcoming.
Venter also detailed the amount of luggage that each deportee could bring: one suitcase weighing up to 20 kilograms, bedding, twenty-one days’ worth of food to be cooked, three days’ worth of food for the duration of the march, and eating utensils. Deportees were not allowed to bring securities or valuables; it would be the Gestapo’s task to search for them. Each deportee was to remit 50 Reichsmarks to the Gestapo by December 6, 1941.
Jewish community workers in Düsseldorf and other locations were ordered to prepare an itemized list of persons selected for deportation. The Jewish leadership found this difficult to do. As a case in point, the head of the Jewish community in Neuss, Siegfried Kaufmann, committed suicide along with his wife shortly before the deportation....