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, 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 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 belonging to this category would be deported to Theresienstadt. Eichmann also warned the Gestapo not to notify the Jews in advance of their deportation in order to prevent attempts to elude the transport.

On May 15, 1942, the Jewish department 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 a top priority. Jews of foreign nationality or those enrolled in the war industry were exempt from deportation.

Due to the Wehrmacht’s preparation for its summer offensive in southern Russia (Operation Blue), the Reichsbahn directorate in Berlin would not allocate special deportation trains with a capacity of 1,000 people during the period between June 15 and July 10. As in previous cases, the guidelines recommended that Gestapo units force the Reich Association of Jews in Germany and local Jewish leaders to assist in preparing the transports.

Hamburg Gauleiter, Karl Kaufmann had been pressing very early on for permission to deport the Jews of Hamburg. In a letter to Göring in the Autumn of 1941 he wrote: "I approached the "Führer" in September 1941 after a severe bombing raid and asked him to approve the deportation of the Jews so at least some of the victims of the bombing could be provided with new apartments. The Führer approved it right away and issued all the necessary orders for the removal of the Jews." Already at the beginning of October 1941, two weeks before the nationwide deportation campaign began, the authorities in Hamburg tried to send four large transports with 4,000 Jews to the Lublin district. This first attempt failed because Governor General Hans Frank refused to cooperate.

Shortly after this failed attempt, the deportations from Hamburg began as part of the nationwide program. The first wave of transports from Hamburg left the city during the short period between the end of October and the beginning of December. It consisted of four large transports to Lodz, Minsk and Riga. Among the Jews that were deported in this first wave, very few survived.

During the following six months, deportations from Hamburg were stopped temporarily. On July 3, 1942, Eichmann's deputy in the Jewish department, Rolf Günther sent a letter to several regional Gestapo offices announcing that larger transports would become possible again shortly. As a result, several "special trains" with Jewish deportees left from cities in the German Reich during July.

Three transports were sent from Hamburg during that month, one destined for Auschwitz and two for Theresienstadt. On board these two trains were many members of the Jewish community, which had been dissolved and incorporated into the "Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland" (Reich Association of Jews in Germany) on August 1, 1942. Among the deportees were legal advisor Dr. Nathan Max Nathan, the head of welfare department in the Reich Association for German Jews in the Northwest, Dr. Berthold Simonsohn and the secretary of the Association Ida Hagenow. Ida Hagenow died in Theresienstadt in May 1944. Dr. Nathan Max Nathan and Dr. Berthold Simonsohn were re-deported to Auschwitz in autumn 1944 where Dr. Nathan was murdered. Dr. Simonsohn survived the concentration camps Auschwitz and Kauffering. With just seven transports between autumn 1941 and summer 1942, the Jewish community of Hamburg was stripped of more than 75% of its members, including most of its leadership.

The second Transport from Hamburg to Theresienstadt left the Hannoversche Bahnhof on July 19, 1942, it arrived on July 20. There were 801 deportees on board, among them Jews from Lübeck (at least 18 deportees), Kiel (7), Uelzen (5), and Rendsburg (2). The deportees were brought to the building of the elementary school in Schanzenstrasse, which served as an assembly site. The luggage was limited 50 kilograms, and everything else had to be left behind. At the assembly site the deportees had to fill out an inventory of their property and sign a document transferring ownership of all their remaining assets to the German Reich.

The transports were not a secret. In her autobiographical novel, Berthie Philipp describes the reactions of the local populace when she and others were transported from a Jewish residential home:

"Many curious passers-by stopped to look. Soon they were forming a large circle around the gate to the garden. They tried to open it several times, but were pushed back by members of the uniformed police who stood guard. Every time the policemen turned around, a few spectators slipped past the gate and they thrusted and pushed their way through to the car. No one was able to chase them away as they avidly strove to enjoy the unusual spectacle up close that was created by helplessly paralyzed and frightened humans. A tall, strong and well-dressed man pushed his way to the front row. He commented: "These are Jews who are being expelled from the country. And that is a good thing!"

A Jewish woman who was deported from Hamburg to Theresienstadt in July 1942 later recalled how she felt during the train ride:
"It was like driving in a fog, without knowing what would happen. A really terrible feeling. Like entering a fog or falling into an abyss. Because we didn’t know what was happening. But in fact there were real compartments. It was indeed a train. Not like later on, when people were transported like cattle in open wagons."

The journey from Hamburg to Theresienstadt took one day. Due to the fact that the train tracks into Theresienstadt had not yet been constructed, the train stopped in the nearby town of Bohusovice. From there, the deportees had to walk the remaining three kilometers to the Ghetto, carrying their luggage. Only people who were unable to walk were taken in trucks. The transport arrived on July 16, 1943, and was registered as VI/2 in the Ghetto records. The Roman numeral VI referred to Hamburg as the city of origin, the number 2 referred to the second transport from that city.

During the fall of 1942, 180 of the deportees who arrived with this transport were re-deported to Treblinka and murdered there. A further 33 in 1943 and yet another 174 Jews in 1944 were shipped off to Auschwitz. Out of all the deportees who arrived in Theresienstadt with transport VI/2, only 93 survived the war.

The director of the Jewish girls’ school, Alberto Jonas and his family were among the deportees on transport VI/2. In an interview his daughter Esther talked about the impact that the deportation had on him:
"Yes, I think I mentioned the fact that my father had to shovel coal and that he was not fit for this type of work. Six weeks later, he died of meningitis. I was always convinced that he died of a broken heart, because Mr. Götsche told him at the train station: "Don't worry, Dr. Jonas, you will have your school again in Theresienstadt. And you will see that it is beautiful over there." But the next day he was shoveling coal. He never got over that. When he fell sick, he had no will left to survive and he died."
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