In January 1945, Nazi Germany faced military defeat. Allied forces liberated France, Belgium and most of the Netherlands. In Eastern Europe, the Red Army had advanced in to the Baltic States and Eastern Poland.
Show more On January 10, the Soviet forces launched a large scale offensive in East Prussia and Poland (Operation Vistula – Oder). On January 17, Soviet forces entered Warsaw. Following the German withdrawal, Heinrich Himmler, Head of the SS, ordered the evacuation of all camps in Poland. On January 18 Auschwitz and its sub camps were evacuated. Many German cities were heavily bombed and destroyed during the Allied aerial attack. The German transportation system was thrown into chaos.
However, the Gestapo continued to issue deportation announcements all across Germany. On January 19, the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) informed all "Mischlinge" (who had been exempt from deportation) to prepare for deportation to Theresienstadt.

The transport left Leipzig for Theresienstadt on February 1 or 2, 1945. It consisted of 172 Jews, among them six Jews from Jena (the seventh committed suicide prior to her transportation) and a small group of Jews from Halle.

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 head of the Leipzig Gestapo at that time, Karl Fistler, played a key role in organizing the transports together with the Department of Jewish Affairs in the RSHA.

The guidelines prepared by the RSHA recommended that Gestapo units force the Reich Association of Jews in Germany and local Jewish leaders to assist in preparing the transports. The local Gestapo then ordered the Jewish community to provide them with lists of the remaining Jews in the city. As soon as the lists were obtained by the Gestapo in Leipzig, copies were passed to their local Department for Jewish Affairs, known in German as Judenstelle. Those Jews selected for deportation were notified in writing. The deportees were permitted to bring a sum of 50 Reichmarks, a suitcase, a full set of clothes, suitable shoes, bedding, tableware and food supplies for eight days. Additionally, those selected for deportation had to produce an inventory of all their properties. If one or more of the proposed deportees committed suicide, or for any other reason could not be deported at the last minute, the Judenstelle would ensure that others would be deported in their place. The deportees were normally kept in the assembly camps for two day prior to deportation.

According to Ellen Bertram, a researcher of Leipzig Jewry, this transport included people categorized by the Nazi authorities as “half Jews”, who were no longer protected from deportation because their non-Jewish spouses had either died or divorced them. If the non-Jewish spouse in a mixed marriage had died, the offspring of such a marriage was now also destined for deportation.

Since the 32. Volksschule had been destroyed in an air raid on December 4, 1943, the deportees were ordered to assemble in the municipal labour office on Riebeckstrasse and/or the prison on Wächterstrasse.

The transport was likely conducted by regular train under guard. Its final destination was the Theresienstadt Ghetto, where it arrived on February 2, 1945. There it was given the reference XVI/5, where the Roman numeral XVI refers to Leipzig.
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