The most feared word in Theresienstadt was transport. ‘To be put on a transport’ meant to be deported eastwards – usually to Auschwitz – to conditions that were far worse than those in Theresienstadt. Although the prisoners in Theresienstadt did not know precisely what was going on in the eastern camps, they did have a premonition. Rumours about gas chambers and inhuman treatment had also reached Theresienstadt.
Both the Danish Jews and the stateless deportees from Denmark were protected against further deportation by an agreement made between Adolf Eichmann, Head of the Office for Jewish Affairs in Berlin and Werner Best, the highest ranking Nazi in Denmark. However, the prisoners knew nothing of this agreement. Like everyone else in Theresienstadt, they feared for their lives every time people were selected for a transport.
Paul Aron lived for a while with 42 boys in one of Theresienstadt’s orphanages. Here, he was the only Danish boy. One day he learned that all the boys – except him – were being put on a transport. After the war, he wrote a poem about that day:
Transport helpers
The prisoners who were not put in transport were forced to carry out various tasks when the transports were scheduled to leave Theresienstadt. Paul Aron, for example, was ordered to play on the day when the boys from his room were transported. Other Danish prisoners were ordered to work as transport helpers.
“There came messages in the evening: Prisoner number such and such is going to be on a transport, and number such will be in a transport, and people were extremely agitated. I was very close to that whole act many times. I was supposed to remove prosthetic devices. Have you ever taken an eye out of a living person? A glass eye? Teeth, which were carefully sorted? Artificial arms should be placed on the right. Legs on the left. These spare parts were meant to be reused by Germany’s surviving soldiers.
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