Transport from Leipzig, Leipzig (Leipzig), Saxony, Germany to Riga, Ghetto, Latvia on 21/01/1942

The transport that left Leipzig on January 21, 1942 to Riga was the first of nine deportations from Leipzig. In January, between 559 and 563 Jews from the Leipzig areas were deported. The train stopped in Dresden to collect between 224 and 250 Jews mainly from the Dresden-Bautzen area. Approximately 150 Jews from Braunschweig and its environs were also deported to Riga on the same day; according to Alfred Gottwaldt they were probably added to the transport in Leipzig. On January 24, 1942, three days after the transport had left Saxony, all the deportees arrived in Riga. The persons considered eligible for deportation were all those defined as Jews according to the Nuremberg laws. At this time, Jews who were generally excluded from the transport were those who were married to non-Jewish partners, as well as their children, and Jews who were employed in the German armament industry. Nonetheless, the Nazi-authorities wanted to include the forced laborers from the Zeiss-Ikon factory in the Goehle munitions plant in Dresden on this first transport leaving Saxony. This was clearly expressed in a report from Martin Mutschmann, Gauleiter (district party leader) of Saxony dated January 1942. However, due to the management’s interest in retaining its cheap workforce, the vast majority of the Jewish slave-laborers at Zeiss-Ikon were spared from deportation for now. Jews over the age of 65, war invalids, or Jews decorated with the Iron Cross would be sent to the newly established "Altersghetto" (Ghetto for eldery Jews) in Theresienstadt in June 1942, and were thus also not yet deported. Altogether, around 800 Jews, mainly German citizens, were deported on this transport from Saxony to Riga. The average age was 42, but also 56 children below the age of ten were on the train – the youngest deportee was nine weeks old. Although the regulations stated that elderly Jews were not to be deported, in Dresden there seem to have been exceptions. Victor Klemperer, the philologist from Dresden, who was protected from deportation at the time thanks to his non-Jewish wife, attests to the elderly being taken from the town in his diary on January 21, 1942: “[...] there are said to be people among them who are so old, weak, and sick that it is unlikely that everyone will still be alive on arrival”....