Westerbork transit camp

15 July 1942: filling a train

Westerbork had been a Dutch-administered refugee camp until the Security Police and SD took it over as a German police transit camp on 1 July 1942. Two weeks later, on 15 July, the first deportation transport left it for Auschwitz-Birkenau.

German authorities had summoned approximately 1,400 Jews in Amsterdam for purported labour in the east, but only about 950 reported.

Because that group did not fill the required transport, commandant Erich Deppner ordered prisoners added from Westerbork, including 51 children from the camp orphanage.

A walk back to Hooghalen station

The deportees were taken to Hooghalen station, several kilometres from the camp, for the eastbound train. Some had arrived from Amsterdam the previous night, walked roughly six kilometres to Westerbork, been registered, and then walked back toward Hooghalen.

The Camp Westerbork Memorial Centre publishes two passenger totals for the train: 1,132 in its digital collection, and 1,137 in its 2022 commemoration material, the figure Anne Frank House also uses.

By 17 July

A second transport left on 16 July. The first two trains reached Auschwitz on 17 July, while Heinrich Himmler was inspecting the complex; he witnessed the gassing of more than 400 people from those transports.

From the first train, Abraham Prins threw out two farewell notes. One asked his wife to stay strong. The other told his nine-year-old son to be brave.