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 May 31 1942, Franz Prüfer informed Philipp Kozower, council member of the Berlin Jewish community about the forthcoming deportations.
During the month of September, the Gestapo launched 14 “small” transports from Berlin to Theresienstadt, each consisting of 100 persons, and one large transport with 1000 Jews. Altogether 2400 people were deported.

This was the second large transport and one of four transports with nearly or over 1,000 persons from Berlin to Theresienstadt. Unlike the smaller transports, this one departed not from Anhalter Bahnhof, but from Berlin-Moabit (Putlitzstrasse) train station on 14 September 1942 and arrived a day later in Theresienstadt. A train was ordered by the Gestapo and provided by Deutsche Reichsbahn under the designation Da 514. The transport consisted of 1000 Jews, of whom 693 were women and 306 were men. The average age of the deportees was 71.6. The youngest was an infant, less than a year old, and the oldest was 90 years old. Eight of them were between the ages of 19 and 45, fifty nine were between 46 and 60, and nine hundred and sixteen of the deportees were between the ages of 61 and 85. Fifteen of the deportees were over 85 years old. Most of the deportees were held in the assembly camp at Grosse Hamburger Strasse. The remaining inhabitants of the Jewish old-age home in Iranische Strasse were also on that train together with inhabitants from the home for the blind and the deaf in Berlin-Weissensee.

The deportees were ordered to appear at the assembly camp in Grosse Hamburger Strasse or were taken from their homes by the Gestapo. A couple of Gestapo men, members of the Jewish desk, would usually show up, in order to round up the Jews destined for deportation. The Jews were requested to hand over the apartments in tidy form, after they had paid all taxes. The Gestapo men searched the deportees’ luggage, and the apartment, and often confiscated valuables. Subsequently they sealed the apartments. Jewish wardens who assisted the deportees in packing and carrying their belongings accompanied the Gestapo men. Trucks drove the Jews to the assembly site. This process usually took place one day prior to the actual deportation. At the assembly site the Jews were forced to sign a declaration, authorizing the transfer of their property to the state.

The procedure of dispatching this transport was different from the smaller transports. As usual, the deportees received a simple breakfast prepared by Jewish community but they were brought by trucks to the train station where they had to wait for hours from morning onwards until everyone had been registered and counted. This procedure lasted until the evening when the train finally left Berlin. They traveled all night long and arrived in Theresienstadt the next morning.

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 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/65 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 following months. Others were later transferred to extermination camps in the East where they were murdered.

According to historian Rita Meyhöfer, 54 deportees from this transport are known to have survived but, according to historian Alfred Gottwaldt, 57 people survived.

This was the 65th of 123 transports from Berlin to Theresienstadt during the war that were made up mainly of elderly Jewish deportees (Alterstransporte).


Testimony by Käthe Breslauer, b. 18. 11. 1874

‘We did not have to wait for long before the order came to send us to Theresienstadt! Throughout Berlin everyone said that Theresienstadt consisted of good sanatoriums and old age homes, that it was Germany’s showcase to demonstrate how well the Jews were treated under Hitler’s regime - especially the older people and the veterans.

Even if we did not believe everything, we still hoped that it would be bearable. The Reich’s Association of the Jews in Germany had already received 50 postcards from there, and all the writers made it clear that they were well. But, despite this positive news, we boarded the furniture vans which stopped in front of our house to pick us up with heavy hearts. If I had to describe what I felt when I left my house, it would be impossible for me. Everything around me seemed unreal. The caretaker who shook our hands with deeply sad eyes, others who watched the interesting spectacle with a malicious grin. The furniture truck with two rows of seats on the side, the movable ramp that led into it, the drive from our silent suburb into the city, during which the truck occasionally stopped to pick up new passengers, the crowds staring at our misfortune, some with joy and some with pity. Everything passed me by like in a dream and still it lives on in my memory.

In the assembly camp and the departure:

We were taken to the assembly camp, a former old age home, where we remained for about a week, stressed and in fear of the unknown. Our luggage was inspected thoroughly as we were not allowed to take our watches, money, jewellery and the like. Then came the departure in a covered truck which was not high enough for us to stand upright – there were no seats. We had to wait from 12 to 9 o’clock in the evening in an old passenger car with locked windows and doors until the signal for departure was given. A final glance at the city where searchlights flared up the sky searching for enemy planes. If someone were to ask me what feelings, what thoughts I had during that journey, I would not be able to answer. It seemed to me that I was so immersed in the experience that I could no longer take in what was happening around me, and the memories of my recent past had been extinguished.

At 6 am we arrived at our destination point – Bauschewitz, the station just before Theresienstadt which did not have a train station of its own at that time. The railway and the station in Theresienstadt were later built by Jews.

Arrival in Theresienstadt

In Bauschewitz we were received by young Jews who were employed as helpers. They arranged us in a row for a slow, hour-long march to Theresienstadt. Only the very old, sick and the infirm were driven in trucks. There were, after all, people on that transport who had to travel the whole way on stretchers. On the way our helpers told us of all the suffering that awaited us in Theresienstadt: poor accommodation, starvation and the lack of the most basic amenities, completely in contrast to what we had been told in Berlin.’

Testimony by Paula Frahm, nee Paula Löffel, b. 23. 4. 1890

‘September 6th 1942 was a dark day for us. I was, at the time, in a home for the deaf and mute in Weissensee […] On that day we received the news that we were to be taken to Theresienstadt on the 14th of the month […] A few weeks before that, we were examined to see who was fit for transportation, and anyone who could even partially stand up was marked as able-bodied so that, in effect, nobody was spared. In August, small groups were taken from the home. It was heart wrenching to witness the fear and misery of these poor blind people, torn from their familiar surroundings, separated from the caretakers they were used to, and thrown into the chaos of the assembly camp in Lewetzowstrasse. Their fate remains shrouded in mist. Then it was our turn, the majority, consisting of about 30 blind people and 70 deaf-mutes along with their caretakers. Our only comfort was that we were not separated, but had to suffer through our fate together. This meant that we had to let go, physically and emotionally, of everything we held dear, of beloved people outside the home, of the things on which we depended, and we were allowed to take only essentials.

We were given the extraordinary benefit of not having to first enter an assembly camp. Instead, we were picked up directly from the home. However, from September 10th, the home was locked down and from then onwards we were not allowed to leave, nor were outsiders allowed to enter. On that day our luggage was also inspected, and everything of value was stolen from our trunks. Gestapo officials also went through the rooms and took even the most modest amounts of money and the most worthless pieces of jewelry. Plundered, humiliated, and with no contact with the outside world, we were left to wait for what was still to come. […]

The day of the journey, September 14th, finally came, and with it the last meal which turned out to be surprisingly good and plentiful. We did not yet realize that this would be the only real food we would see in the years to come. About half an hour later, the house was filled with the so-called marshals, who called us by name, counted us, registered us, and finally hung signs with numbers around our necks. The number 1-65 7248 followed me for almost the next three years of my life. At the end of the journey we were packed into furniture trucks and taken to a freight train station. The preparation of the train that was meant to transport 1200 people with their luggage to Theresienstadt took from 3 o’clock in the afternoon to 9 o’clock in the evening. With heavily locked and darkened windows, the train drove through the autumn night. In the few stops it made, I could hear footsteps on pebble, muffled voices outside and at one time a gunshot, the cause for which was not explained. It was about 5 o’clock in the morning when the order to disembark was given. We were allowed to carry only the most essential hand luggage. We found ourselves in Bauschowitz, a train station that was located a few kilometers away [from Theresienstadt]. We had to make our way to Theresienstadt on foot. Only the old, the infirm and the sick were brought to our destination in motor vehicles.’

Testimony by an anonymous woman

‘A short while before our deportation to Theresienstadt, my husband had to sign the “contract of home purchase” (Heimkaufvertrag). […] We were notified about the transport by the Jewish community some weeks in advance. Since we heard nothing further my husband called the community a couple of times: “Why weren’t we picked up?” He did so because there were more and more transports to the east, and he feared we could also be put aboard one of them instead. Without any further warning, people from the community suddenly came and wanted to take us right away, but my husband did not agree […]

Some time later we were finally given a final notification that we would be picked up a few days later in the morning. We were allowed 25 kg per person in luggage. We were ordered to mark the luggage with the transport number, which was not identical to the numbers that were assigned to us later in Theresienstadt. Our destination was described as a small resort, and we were promised free accommodation, boarding, laundry, a doctor and a pharmacy.

On that morning we were taken in a large, closed truck. It was also loaded with our luggage. Many of our unfortunate companions were already inside the vehicle. We couldn’t sit down […]. The assembly camp where we spent two or three days was, if I’m not mistaken, in Grosse Hamburger Strasse. Transport I/65 consisted of 1000 people, not all of whom were brought into our assembly camp as it could hold only about 200 people. I do not know where the others were. The conditions in the assembly camp were pretty good; there were simple but clean wooden beds, and we used our own blankets. German functionaries checked our luggage, and some of it was confiscated. At noon on September 14th we were taken to a train station, again in a covered truck; […]. In our car there were perhaps 50 people. At the train station we were put aboard a regular passenger car with our hand luggage and we were able to sit. The larger luggage was placed in a special car. Our fellow passengers were mostly elderly. The train travelled throughout the night. At one time, the train stopped somewhere because a fire was said to have broken out in one of the cars. Our car was also evacuated. The people had to huddle together in the other cars, and it took a long time for everyone to find a seat.

We arrived at Bauschowitz at 6am on September 15th, 1942. Someone from the Jewish railway team was nice enough to advise us to go by foot to Theresienstadt with our luggage rather than by truck, for fear we would lose all of our things. The walk was arduous, and in a “Schleuse”, whose address I cannot remember, we had the regular newcomer experience. We had lost our big suitcases and more things were confiscated out of our hand luggage. Still, we were lucky enough to be able to hold on to most of it.’
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