On May 21 1943, Rolf Günther, Adolf Eichmann’s deputy in Department IVB4, informed all local police headquarters of Heinrich Himmler’s order to complete all deportations of Jews from the Greater Reich and the Protectorate to the East and to Theresienstadt by June 30 1943. The new regulations included several groups of Jews whose deportation had been postponed until then. This included sick and infirm Jews, Jews who were still employed as slave labourers for the war industry, and employees of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden (Reich's Association of the Jews in Germany). The only exemptions were Jews who were married to non-Jews. The regulations also provided guidelines regarding the procedure of the deportations. In the case of smaller deportations consisting of up to 400 Jews, special cars, connected to regular trains, were to be used.
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By the spring of 1943, the great majority of the Jewish population of Lower Silesia has already been deported to killing sites near Kaunas and Izbica, to Auschwitz-Birkenau and to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. The only Jews remaining in the capital city of Breslau were living in the rapidly-shrinking Jewish area around Wallstrasse where the community offices and the Jewish hospital were located.

Transport IX/5 departed from the Odertor train station on June 10 1943 and arrived at Theresienstadt on the next day. It was the fifth of 12 transports made up of elderly and otherwise privileged Jews from the province of Lower Silesia. The transport consisted of 161 Jews who were residents of Breslau. Among the deportees were also the bed-ridden inmates of the Jewish hospital, which had been relocated twice since the beginning of the war and was now located at Wallstrasse. This time, the Nazis ordered its complete evacuation. Some of the medical staff joined the patients on this transport; the rest would follow several days later on transport IX/6. Another person on this transport was Max Kronheim, the 78 year-old Head of the Jewish community in Glogau.

The residents of Breslau who were on this transport were arrested and registered at their homes by uniformed police NSDAP and activists and were then brought by trucks to the assembly site. If they were not found, a manhunt would be instigated.

The deportees were assembled in the courtyard of the “Storch”, the old Orthodox Synagogue at Wallstrasse. There, they were questioned by officers from the Departments of Jewish Affairs, representatives of the Regional Financial Office of Lower Silesia, legal clerks and officials from the District Government. They were forced to sign a declaration relinquishing their entire property to the State. They had to hand over the keys of their apartments to the clerks of the Regional Financial Office. 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. Afterwards, Gestapo officials escorted by NSDAP activists would conduct another search in the apartments of the deportees and then seal them off.

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 exact time and date of the departure is unknown; 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/5 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.

According to historian Alfred Gottwaldt, 21 persons from this transport are known to have survived the war.


Siegmund Hadda, Director of the Jewish Hospital in Breslau, wrote in his memoirs: “June 10th 1943 was the time of the death of the Jewish hospital in Breslau. On that day, the sick were brought to Theresienstadt in a closed transport on stretchers”.


Among the deportees was Rosa Tausk, born 11.5.1852. In relation to her transport, the judges in the trial of Gestapo officer Hans Müller wrote: “On the occasion when elderly and sick Jews were loaded onto an omnibus, the accused [Müller] threw them inside and tossed their luggage on top of them. This was a group of especially old Jews, among whom sick Jews aged 80 or even 91 years old were loaded on stretchers. Here too the accused behaved in a rough and inhuman manner, with no regard for the advanced age or the health of these people.”
Rosa Tausk survived this transport, but perished on 3.3.1944.
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