Towards the end of November 1941, the Nazi authorities began to deport the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia (the Protectorate) to the fortress city of Theresienstadt, which was located about 60 km north of Prague. The city’s 18th century fortress now served as a ghetto. Thousands of deportees were housed in the army barracks under terrible conditions. By depicting Theresienstadt as a "model of Jewish settlement" and thus concealing its role as a transit camp for Jewish deportees, the Nazis were able to camouflage their true objectives and policies namely, the mass annihilation of the Jews.
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Commencing in January 1942, transports began to leave Theresienstadt for Riga. Later, some of the transports were sent to extermination camps and murder sites, including Auschwitz, Treblinka and Maly Trostenets.

At the Wannsee Conference on January 20 1942, Head of the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) Reinhard Heydrich announced that Hitler had authorized the evacuation of the Jewish population in Europe to the East. Heydrich added that the evacuation of the Reich’s Jews would be given priority because of housing problems and other socio-political considerations. Jews over the age of 65, war invalids, or Jews decorated with the Iron Cross would be sent to the newly established “old people’s ghetto” – Theresienstadt.

On March 6, following Heydrich’s announcement, Adolf Eichmann, Director of the Department of Jewish and Dispossession Affairs (Department IVB4) in the RSHA, convened a meeting of Gestapo delegates from all over the Reich to discuss the measures necessary to carry out the deportation of 55,000 Jews from Germany and the Protectorate. Eichmann stressed that elderly Jews were not to be included in the transports. Jews who belonged to this category would be deported to Theresienstadt. Eichmann also warned the Gestapo not to notify the Jews in advance about their deportation in order to prevent attempts to elude the transport.

On May 15 1942, Department IVB4 issued new guidelines signed by Gestapo Head Heinrich Müller regarding the deportation of Jews to the “old people’s” ghetto in Theresienstadt. The evacuation of the residents from old age homes was cited as the top priority. Jews of foreign nationality or those enrolled in the war industry were exempt from deportation.

The deportation of the elderly Jews of Breslau to transit camps in the rural areas of Lower Silesia had already begun in July 1941, instigated by an edict from the Head of the regional NSDP branch (“Gauleiter”) Karl Hanke. In the autumn of 1941, Alfred Hampel, head of the Department of Jewish Affairs in the Breslau State Police Office, traveled to Berlin where he received guidelines and documents concerning the deportation of Jews to the East.

Transport IX/3 departed from the Odertor train station on February 24 1943, and arrived at Theresienstadt on the same day. It was the third of 12 transports consisting of elderly and otherwise privileged Jews from the province of Lower Silesia. The transport included 102 Jews, residents of Breslau and other cities and towns of Lower Silesia who had been deported some months earlier to the transit camp at the monastery of Grüssau (Krzeszów). Some of the deportees had been previously deported to another Lower Silesian transit camp which was located in Tormersdorf north of Görlitz, and had been shut down a few months earlier.

Little is known about this transport. Presumably, the residents were brought to Breslau by train, and detained at an assembly site. Based on the information available, it may be assumed that this was either the hall of the Society of Friends at Neue Graupenstrasse, or the courtyard of the “Storch” Synagogue and Jewish community offices at Wallstrasse. There, they were guarded by uniformed police. They were questioned by officers from the Department of Jewish Affairs, representatives of the Regional Financial Office of Lower Silesia, legal clerks and officials from the District Government. Those who had not done so already were forced to sign a declaration relinquishing their entire property to the State. Their apartments had already been taken over following their deportation to Grüssau. Officers of the Criminal Police and the Gestapo conducted body searches and examined luggage for money and valuables which were confiscated upon discovery. Sometimes the deportees would undergo mock physical examinations by the Gestapo officers.

The Jewish community was ordered to provide a Jewish physician and a small team of nurses for the deportees. The medical staff was brought to the assembly site by trucks and was not allowed to leave until the transport had departed.

On the day of the transport, the deportees were marched to the Odertor station and the police closed off the streets through which they passed. The luggage and those unable to march were brought by trucks operated by a local moving business. They entered the station through a back entrance, and were hurried into 3rd class passenger cars which were connected to a regular passenger train scheduled to depart in the morning. This was sometimes done in a brutal and violent manner. The journey took 12 hours at the very least, and possibly longer. The train presumably went west, to Dresden and from there to Bohusovice (Bauschowitz) via Decin (Tetschen) and Usti nad Labem (Aussig).

The deportees were taken off the train at Bohusovice station and forced by the awaiting SS personnel and Czech gendarmerie to walk the approximate 3 kilometers to Theresienstadt, carrying their hand luggage. Only people who were unable to walk were taken in trucks. The transport was given the reference IX/3 in the Theresienstadt ghetto listings where the Roman numeral IX refers to Breslau. In Theresienstadt, many of the elderly Jewish deportees died of hunger and disease. Others were later transferred to extermination camps in the East where they were murdered.

Of this transport, 8 persons are known to have survived the war.
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