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 6 March, 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 not to include elderly Jews in the transports. Jews of 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 15 May 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.

Unlike most deportations from the German Reich to the Theresienstadt ghetto, the deportation of the Jews from Upper Silesia began relatively late, in the autumn of 1942.

This Transport departed from the Oppeln train station on December 11, 1943 and arrived at Theresienstadt on the same day. It was the fourth of 10 transports comprising of elderly Jews and others from the province of Upper Silesia who had until now been protected from deportation. The transport consisted of 53 Jews, residents of the Upper Silesian city of Oppeln and towns of Leschnitz (renamed Bergstadt), Oberglogau and Rutenau. The majority of the deportees were elderly persons over 65 years of age.

Several days prior to the deportation, the Jewish community received a list of deportees, and had to notify these individuals of their upcoming deportation. The deportees were ordered to report to the assembly point in the old animal market (“Bullenkeller”) at Malapanerstrasse in Oppeln. They were ordered to settle their bills and debts, and bring up to 10kg of luggage and the keys to their apartments.

At the assembly point, they were registered and forced to sign a declaration relinquishing their entire property to the state. They were interned at the assembly point until the day of the transport.

On the day of the transport, the deportees were marched to the Main Train Station (Hauptbahnhof) in Oppeln through a main street, escorted by uniformed police. At the train station, they were forced to enter a railway car (probably a passenger car) that was attached to a regular passenger train. The train’s route was presumably to Breslau, from there to Dresden and finally to the Bohusovice (Bauschowitz) station. The deportees were taken off the train and forced by the awaiting SS personnel and Czech gendarmerie to walk the approximate 3 kilometers to Theresienstadt, carrying their hand luggage.

The transport was given the reference XVIII/4 in the Theresienstadt ghetto listings where the Roman numeral XVIII refers to Oppeln.

According to historian Alfred Konieczny, 23 of the deportees died in Theresienstadt of hunger and disease. Twenty one were later transferred to the Auschwitz extermination camp, where they were murdered. Only nine persons from this transport survived in Theresienstadt until the end of the war.


Matylda Kluge (nee Gutmann), a Jewish resident of Oppeln who was protected by her marriage to a non-Jewish spouse, reports in her testimony:
“When they took my mother on December 10th 1942, I entered the railway car with her. Later they drove me out and gave everyone a printed form to sign in which everyone stated that he leaves Opole [Oppeln] and leaves his entire property to the Reich. I saw these forms through the window, but couldn’t read them. Those who managed to read quickly told us through the window: “We had to sign that we give up everything and leave of our own volition”.

Matylda Kluge’s mother, 69 year-old Henrietta Proskauer, survived in Theresienstadt until its liberation.


Among the deportees on this transport was also Moses Spier, a teacher. After Jewish children were banned from attending public schools, Spier faced the challenge of single-handedly providing education to all of the Jewish children who still resided in Oppeln. The lessons were held communally with no division between age groups in the single room of the Jewish community offices in Gartnerstrasse. Oppeln community leader Georg Wiener, who was also deported to Theresienstadt, recalls Spier’s fate: “The teacher Spier was crippled, and was put there [in Theresienstadt] on a train, which brought him to his doom in the East.” Spier was sent on a transport to Auschwitz on 28.10.1944.
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