On 21 May 1943, Rolf Günther, Adolf Eichmann’s deputy in Department IVB4, informed all local police headquarters that Heinrich Himmler had ordered to complete all deportations of Jews from the Greater Reich and the Protectorate to the East and to Theresienstadt by 30 June 1943. The new regulations included several groups of Jews whose deportation was postponed until then. This included sick and infirm Jews, Jews who were still employed in slave labor for the war industry, employees of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden (Reich's Association of the Jews in Germany). The only exemptions were Jews married to non-Jews. The regulations also gave guidelines for the procedure of the deportation. In case of smaller deportations up to 400 Jews, special cars, connected to regular trains, were to be used.
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In June 1943 Germany was officially declared “ Jew-Free” ("judenrein"). According to the 1943 census, there remained in Germany 9,529 people who were defined as Jews according the Nuremberg laws. Most of them were spouses in mixed marriages, Jews of mixed ancestry and Jewish community personnel that worked in the Jewish hospital. In addition, more than 2,000 Jews still lived in hiding.

On June 10, 1943, the Nazi authorities officially closed the "Reich Association of Jews in Germany" (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland). All financial and property assets were confiscated.

The transport left Leipzig for Theresienstadt on September 8 or 9, 1943. It consisted of one Jew from Leipzig, Alexander Max. The Head of the Gestapo of Leipzig, Karl Fistler, organized this transport together with the forced cooperation of the Leipzig Jewish community.

With the exception of the “Einzeltransporte” (transports of individuals), none of the transports that left Leipzig for Theresienstadt originated in Leipzig. Rather, these trains came from places like Weimar and even as far as Frankfurt (am Main) and stopped in Leipzig en route to Theresienstadt to pick up the Jews from Leipzig and the vicinity.

The transport was likely conducted by regular train under guard. Its final destination was the Theresienstadt Ghetto, where it arrived on September 9, 1943. The transport was given the reference XVI/2 Ez 3, where the Roman numeral XVI refers to Leipzig. Ez were the German initials given to special transports of individuals (Einzelreisende Sondertransport).
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