In 1945 the Gestapo launched three "small" transports from Munich, consisting of 97 Jews altogether.
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Since the closure of Milbertshofen assembly camp in August 1942, the number of Jews in Munich remained very low. In March 1943 the Berg am Laim camp was also closed. On September 1 1944 only 450 persons were counted as Jews according to the Nuremberg laws. Among them seven were “full Jews”. The majority of people in the last eleven transports from Munich to Theresienstadt were Jews from ‘mixed marriages’ who were scheduled for deportation because their non-Jewish partner had either died or divorced. In February 1943 the RSHA had sent out new deportation guidelines to the local State Police offices. From then on, working in forced labour did not protect anyone from deportation. However, Jewish partners in existing mixed marriages and “Geltungsjuden” (people of mixed ancestry) were still exempt. In May 1943 the guidelines for deportation intensified as Heinrich Himmler ordered that all Jews defined as such according to the Nuremberg laws and still living in Germany had to be deported. The Reich Main Security Office (RSHA – Reichssicherheitshauptamt) decided in February 1945 that from then on, all persons of mixed ancestry (Mischlinge, Geltungsjuden) as well as Jewish partners in mixed marriages had to be deported. Contrary to the earlier transports, the average age of the deportees was now significantly lower because people who worked for the community and others who were partners in mixed marriages were also included.

The end of the war was foreseeable and many Jews scheduled for deportation went into hiding. Others were not registered because the card index with the names and addresses of the remaining Jews in Munich had been destroyed or damaged. For this reason, only a small percentage of the remaining Jews was sent to Theresienstadt in 1945.

This transport arrived in Theresienstadt on February 14, 1945. Fourteen Jews from Munich were on board. Thanks to numerous testimonies, a lot is known about the organisation of the deportations which still took place despite the heavy war damage to Munich itself and to the railway system. It took two days to take the Jews on this transport to Theresienstadt. Eleven of them were residents from Regensburg who were from mixed marriages and therefore had not been deported earlier.

As there was no assembly camp in Munich anymore, the deportees were taken from their apartments and brought to Munich’s secret State Police headquarters where most of them were jailed for a few days prior to deportation. They were searched and their last valuables were confiscated. The deportees had to endure bureaucratic procedures and undergo the final stages of expropriation. Their declarations of property were collected and they were informed that because they were “enemies of the Reich” their assets had been seized.

On the morning of February 12, the day of deportation, they had to march to Munich’s central train station. At the station, one second-class passenger car awaited them and the deportees were ordered to board the train. Every transport was accompanied by Gestapo members and members of the uniformed police. The car was then attached to several other local passenger trains in succession and travelled via Moosach, Freising, Landshut, Regensburg, Schwandorf, Marktredwitz, Eger, Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad) and Usti nad Labem (Aussig) to Theresienstadt, where it finally arrived two days later.

From June 1 1943 onward, the trains went directly into the ghetto following the connecting railway line from Bauschowitz station to Theresienstadt that the prisoners had been forced to build. The transport was given the reference II/33 in the Theresienstadt ghetto listings where the Roman numeral II refers to Munich.

Everyone from these last three transports survived Theresienstadt.
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