From January 1943 onwards, Auschwitz- Birkenau and Theresienstadt were the main destination of transports from the German Reich. The Gestapo increased its efforts to seize and deport Jews remaining in Germany.
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On May 21, 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 (Auschwitz-Birkenau) and to Theresienstadt by June 30, 1943. The new regulations permitted the deportation of ill and handicapped Jews, as well Jews who were still employed by the war industry, and employees of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden (Reich's Association of the Jews in Germany) and of its representatives in various communities. Jews married to non-Jews were exempt from deportation.

After the mass deportations of 1942, 8,000 Jews remained in Vienna (Wien).
Transport No. 47d left from Vienna’s Nordbahnhof (Northern Railway Station) on December 1, 1943, and arrived in Auschwitz Birkenau on December 2. It consisted of 24 Jews. This was the fourth transport from Vienna to Auschwitz in 1943. The exact number of deportees remains unknown. Historian Danuta Czech notes in the Auschwitz Chronicle that on December 2, approximately 100 Jews arrived in Auschwitz in an RSHA-transport from Vienna. It is possible that this was a group transport, consisting of Jews from several cities.

Upon arrival, the SS men carried out a selection. 13 men and 11 women were sent to the camp. The men were given the Nos. 165331-165343. It is not known which numbers were given to the women. Approximately 70 deportees, who did not pass the selection, were immediately sent to the gas chambers and murdered.


At the end of World War II, around 5,000 Jews remained in Vienna.
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