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.

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 15 June and 10 July. New orders specified that Jews would be deported in a single rail car with a capacity of 50 people. The car would be attached to a regular passenger train. During 1942, small transports of 50 Jews departed only from Berlin and Munich. 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.

As in previous cases, the guidelines recommended that Gestapo units force the Reich's Association of the Jews in Germany and local Jewish communities to assist in preparing the transports.

The department for Jewish Affairs at the Berlin Gestapo, headed by SS-Untersturmführer Gerhard Stübs and his deputy Kriminaloberinspektor Franz Prüfer was put in charge of organizing the transports together with the Department of Jewish Affairs in the RSHA.

On 31 May 1942, Franz Prüfer informed Board Member of the Jewish community (JKV) Philipp Kozower of the planned transports.

In the month of June 1942 the Gestapo launched 13 "small" transports from Berlin, consisting of 750 Jews altogether.

This transport departed from Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin on 4 June 1942 and arrived in Theresienstadt in the early evening of the same day. The transport consisted of 100 Jews, of whom 57 were women and 43 were men. The average age of the deportees was 78. The youngest was 53 years old and the oldest was aged 89. Three of the deportees were between the ages of 46 and 60, and 88 of the deportees were between the ages of 61 and 85. Nine of the deportees were over 85 years old. Ninety four of the deportees were residents of the old age home in Grosse Hamburger Strasse which was being closed down to establish a Sammellager (assembly camp) instead.

On 4 June, the day of the deportation, they were woken up between two and three in the morning, received a simple breakfast prepared by the Jewish community and had to leave the building in Grosse Hamburger Strasse at approximately 04:00. They marched a few hundred meters to Monbijouplatz where a BVG streetcar (Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe - Berlin Transportation Company) awaited them. At around 05:00 they boarded the tram and were transferred expeditiously to Anhalter Bahnhof located on Schöneberger Strasse where they arrived by 05:15. There, through a side entrance, they were led to platform No. 1 and were ordered to board two old third-class rail cars ordered from the Reichsbahn. The cars were connected to a regular, scheduled passenger train that left the train station every day at around 06:00 for Dresden, where it stopped for a few hours. On the first transports the deportees received a stew provided by the Dresden Jewish community. In Dresden the cars with the Jews were connected to another regular train headed for Prague.

The train's route took the deportees from Berlin to Dresden and along the river Elbe to Decin (Tetschen), Usti nad Labem (Aussig) and finally to Bohusovice (Bauschowitz). The deportees were taken off the train at the Bohusovice station and forced by the awaiting SS personnel and Czech gendarmerie to walk the approximate 3 km to Theresienstadt, carrying their backpacks. Only people who were unable to walk were taken in trucks.

The transport was given the reference I/2 in the Theresienstadt ghetto listings where the Roman numeral I refers to Berlin. In Theresienstadt many of the elderly Jewish deportees who had arrived on these transports died of hunger and disease during the summer months. Others were transferred in the following months to extermination camps in the East where they were murdered.

According to historian Rita Meyhöfer, 25 people who were on the first three transports from Berlin to Theresienstadt survived. According to historian Alfred Gottwaldt, no one from this transport survived.

This was the second of 123 transports organized from Berlin to Theresienstadt during the war that were made up mainly of elderly Jewish deportees (Alterstransporte).
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