Despite the fact that by the end of June 1943 ninety percent of Cologne had been destroyed by American and British bombardments (especially during the "Peter and Paul attack" on June 29, 1943), the Gestapo continued to deport Jews from the city to Theresienstadt. Altogether 80 Jews were deported to the ghetto during this period. Some Jews from Aachen, Koblenz and Wittlich were among them.
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The eighth transport left the Cologne-Deutz train station on June 19 1943 and arrived in Theresienstadt on the same day. In the ghetto listings the transport was given the reference III/8 where the Roman numeral III refers to Cologne. The transport consisted of 35 Jews of whom 22 were women and 13 were men. The average age of the deportees was 51. Among the deportees were three women aged 90 and above.
The transport included the head of the Rheinland District Office of the Reich Association of the Jews in Germany Ernst Peiser and his wife Erna, Executive Board member Siegfried Bernhard and his wife Anna, as well as the last remaining physician from the Israelite Asylum Dr. Hermann Plato. During the year of 1944 all of them were deported to Auschwitz and were murdered there.
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