When  How Many  Where

Former freight station Dresden-Neustadt/Alter Leipziger Bahnhof (Old Leipzig Sation), reception building - from 20.January 2022 - three enamel signs © David Adam

The inaugural train of Germany's first long-distance rail link took about 4 hours from Leipzig to Dresden on April 7, 1839. Among others, the royal family had made themselves comfortable in the carriages pulled by two English locomotives. There was a celebratory atmosphere along the route.

Neustadt Freight Station as Picture Postcard around 1910

On January 21, 1942, in the first transport of Saxon Jews, 785 people were deported to Riga via Leipzig and Dresden. There were 561 deportees from the Leipzig Gestapo district and 224 from Dresden. The train reached Riga after 4 days.

 Excerpts of the documentary "We did survive this. The Riga Ghetto" by Jürgen Hobrecht © Phönix Mediaproduction 2013

Between 1942 and 1944, the Dresden-Neustadt freight station - also known as the Alter Leipziger Bahnhof - was the starting point or stopover for deportations of Jewish women, men and children to ghettos, concentration and extermination camps.

Deportation and extermination - Unwitnessed events? 

Under this title, track 11 of the audio city tour "audioscript - On the Persecution and Extermination of Jews in Dresden 1933 - 1945" deals with the history of the deportations from Dresden as well as with the testimonies of the few survivors and contextualizes them historically and philosophically. (http://www.audioscript.net)

A few hundred meters away, next to the entrance of the Dresden-Neustadt train station, a plaque designed by Marion Kahnemann www.mkahnemann.de has commemorated the events since 2001.

Dresden Memorial Depot - Neustadt freight station 2001
Audio Script on the Persecution and Extermination of Jews in Dresden 2008
Initiative Living at Leipzig Station 2017
Traces of Perpetrators Memorial Walk 2019

A different view

Stadtwiki Dresden Leipzig Station
Stadtwiki Dresden Freight Station Dresden-Neustadt

Who

An official list with all names of the (most likely) 224 people deported from Dresden to Riga on 21.01.1942 does not exist. In years of detailed work 212 names were confirmed, whereby 7 of them remain questionable.  (Sources: Konrad Adolph; Archive Buch der Erinnerung)
Deportation list from Dresden to  Riga

Deportation, ghetto, concentration camp, forced labor or death march were survived by 17 people of this transport.
Survivors of the deportation from Dresden to  Riga

There is an official deportation list for Leipzig.
Deportation list from Leipzig to Riga

Excerpt from survivor Ezra Jurmann's account of his experience © USC Shoah Foundation 1997

Esra with his father 1946 in London  © Danny Jurmann

Ersa Jurmann, born in Pirna on May 20, 1929, was the second son, after his brother Manfred, of Abraham Wolf Jurmann and his wife Berta, née Fliegelmann, who had a clothing store at Markt 14 in Pirna until November 9, 1938.

More about the Jurmann family on gedenkplätze.info
Report of jewish survivor Esra Jurmann in full length © USC Shoah Foundation

Manfred Ogrodek 1945  © Manfred Ogrodek

Manfred Ogrodek, born on 24.09.1930 in Dresden, was the first son of Hersch/Hans Ogrodek and his wife Dora, née Sander. He had a younger brother named Detlef. His mother died on 22.09.1941 of cancer. His father was a tailor and merchant and owner of a store for woven, wool and linen at Altmarkt 15 in Dresden.
More about the Ogrodek family in the "Book of remembrance"

Manfred survived and wrote an account of his experiences in 1948
Manfred Ogrodek - Einer von vielen


List of names of the transport on July 13, 1942 to Auschwitz (16 people) is missing

Name list Auschwitz transport March 2/3, 1943 (293 people) Arolsen Archives

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Excerpt from the documentary "The Jews are gone. The Dresden-Hellerberg camp" © E.Hirsch/U.Teschner 1997

"The Jews are gone" in the film archive of Yad Vashem

As early as October 1938, the first large-scale organized deportation took place, the so-called "Polenaktion". From the Dresden-Neustadt train station, 724 Jewish people of Polish descent who had been arrested earlier were expelled and taken in a "special train" to Bentschen/Zbąszyń on what was then the German-Polish border. (Alfred Gottwald, however, wrote of Bytom in "Shoes of the Dead," MHM Dresden, 2014, p. 80.)
No official list of names is known for the transport on October 28, 1938 from Dresden-Neustadt station (724 persons) as part of the so-called "Polenaktion".
Bruchstuecke1938 - The Polenaktion
Commemorative plaque on the "Polenaktion" in Leipzig

On November 11/12, 1938, as a result of the Reich Pogrom Night, 151 Jewish people from the administrative district of Dresden were deported to the Buchwald concentration camp. (Source: Shoes of the Dead, MHM Dresden, 2014, p.80, Alfred Gottwaldt)

Kurt Sabatsky, memory of his arrest and transport from Dresden to Buchenwald on 10.11.1938

Kurt Sabatsky - Center for Jewish History - Leo Baeck Institute Archives S.39

Kurt Sabatzky, born on 23.04.1892 Köslin (Pomerania), was a lawyer, journalist, association official
1922-1923 syndic of the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens in Leipzig, 1923-1932 managing director of the Centralverein in East Prussia and 1933-1938 of the Landesverband Sachsen und Anhalt in Leipzig; member of the Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten and the B'nai B'rith; temporarily imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp; 1939 managing director of the Essen synagogue congregation; 1939 emigration to Great Britain, where he worked for Jewish organizations from 1943.

 
Between 1942 and 1944, further deportations from Dresden took place, which were not handled by the Deutsche Reichsbahn. At least 429 people were transported to Theresienstadt by truck in group and individual transports. (Source: Shoes of the Dead, MHM Dresden, 2014, p.92, Alfred Gottwaldt)

1942
http://www.statistik-des-holocaust.de/list_ger_mid_420701.html
1943-1945
http://www.statistik-des-holocaust.de/list_ger_mid_43t.html

Victor Klemperer, diary entry of Feb. 13, 1945, from "Shoes of the Dead," page 269, MHM Dresden, 2014.

Victor Klemperer on February 13, 1945:

Yesterday afternoon Neumark had me called over; I would have to help deliver letters this morning. I accepted this unsuspectingly. (...) At eight o'clock today I was at Mrs. Neumark's. Mrs. Jährig came out of her room crying. Then he told me: "Evacuation for all those who are fit for duty, it's called an external work assignment, I myself as a discharged person will stay here.’’ Me: ‘’So it's a safer end for me than for those who leave’’. He: ‘’That's not what I said, on the contrary, staying here is considered a privilege.’’ (...) The notice to be delivered stated that one was to report to Zeughausstrasse 3 on Friday morning in a work suit with hand luggage, which was to be carried for a long distance, and with provisions for two to three days of travel. This time there would be no confiscation of property, furniture, etc., the whole thing is expressly only an external work assignment - but it is consistently interpreted as a death march. In the process, the cruelest separations occur: Frau Eisenmann and Schorschi stay here, Lisl, the eleven-year-old star bearer, has to leave with father and Herbert. One does not take age into consideration, neither up nor down, neither seventy nor seven - it is incomprehensible what one understands by "fit for work".

Excerpt of an Interview with Henny Brenner © Zentralwerk 2015

Henny Brenner in September 1941  © MHM

Henny Brenner, born as Henny Wolf on November 25, 1924 in Dresden and daughter of Rebekka and Max Wolf, was a Jewish-German forced laborer at Zeiss-Ikon in the Göhle-Werke. Her father was, among other things, the operator of the cinema "Palast-Theater" in Alaunstraße 28. In ‘‘Das Lied ist aus’’ (2001) she tells about her life in Dresden and the rescue of her family by the bombing on February 13, 1945.
Filminterview mit Henny Brenner

Deportation Destinations

Auschwitz-Birkenau, end of  Januar 1945  © Federal Archiv, B 285 Pic-04413  Stanislaw Mucha

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Neu-Bentschen/Zbąszyń    Beuthen    Konitz
Jewish Museum Berlin "Polenaktion" 1938

Buchenwald
Memorial Buchenwald

Riga/Rīga 
Riga Ghetto and Latvian Holocaust Museum
Gelsencentre Riga
Wandering Exhibition of the Riga-Comitee

Two songs from the camp Strasdenhof (outside camp of Concentration camp Kaiserwald in Riga) sung by Esra Jurmann, recording around 2000, by Hugo Jensch

Two coins found by Esra Jurmann on his way back after the libaration in 1945 in the former Ghetto Litzmannstadt/Łódź

Theresienstadt/Terezín
Memorial Theresienstadt

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Auschwitz/Oświęcim
Auschwitz-Birkenau
History of the Concentration Camp Auschwitz


  Postcard from Fritz (1905-1943) and Ilse Wolffsky (1913-1943) to Adolf Wolffsky (1898-1975) ot the occasion of their deportation, Tichau, 27.06.1943
  Jewish Museum Berlin, Donation of Jon Wolffsky 

Transcript: „Gruß an Alle! Vergeßt uns nicht! Fritz Ilse Micki 27/6.43 2 Uhr nachm.“
Translation: "Greetings to all! Don't forget us! Fritz Ilse Micki 27/6.43 2 Uhr aftern.“

Fritz Wolffsky, the younger brother of Adolf Wolffsky, was deported from Berlin to Auschwitz together with his wife Ilse and his half-year-old son Denny on June 28, 1943. One day later, they wrote this postcard, probably previously provided with the address; presumably during the train ride, as evidenced by the scrawled writing. The card consists of a few dramatic words, "Greetings to all! Don't forget us!" Presumably Fritz and Ilse Wolffsky threw the card off the train and the finder sent it from Tichau in Upper Silesia, 15 km south of Katowice, to Berlin.

Railway Lines for Deportations from or via Dresden,  taken from "Shoes ot the Dead" P.90/91 T.Zimmermann © MHM 2014

In the urban context - places of remembrance

Parade of  a banner division in front of  Adolf Hitler on the occasion of the Reichs theater weeks in Dresden 1934 © Ullstein Bild

Compareable Places

Memorial at Frankfurt wholesale market hall - katzkaiser architects 2015 © Norbert Miguletz

Materials

Shoah, Claude Lanzmann, 1985 © Absolut Medien

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autobiographical literature about the holocaust
Yad Vashem video testimonials
Medaon magazin for jewish life in research and education

Perspectives

aerial view Old Leipziger Station, Dietrich Flechtner, 2013

Der vergessene Bahnhof
Sächsische Zeitung vom 9.3.2013

Initiative Wohnen am Leipziger Bahnhof
Sachsen Fernsehen vom 18.09.2017

Leipziger Bahnhof
Industriekultur Sachsen 2020

Und der Hanse zugewandt
Podiumsdiskussion in der Hanse 3 am 29.09.2020

Was wäre wenn
Neustadt-Geflüster vom 26.06.2021

Freiraum direkt 
Projekt der Geh8 im Sommer 2021

Beteiligungsverfahren geplant
Neustadt-Geflüster vom 11.01.2022

Das plant die Stadt
Akteursnetzwerk
DNN vom 18.01.2022

urbanistic perspectives
handbook for thinking further

Protagonists in the area

studios
Hanse 3 e.V. in the former depot and signal work building

trailer park
Schotter und Gleise e.V.

Center for contemporary jazz music
Blaue Fabrik e.V.

Freight Depot Dresden-Newtown around 1920

When-HowMany-Where was created on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the deportation of jewish women, men and children to Riga on 21.1.1942.

With the kind support and sponsorship of:

Special thanks are due to all persons, initiatives and organizations who, in many years of work, have collected information, researched the forgotten, brought the unknown to light, visited archives and interviewed survivors and contemporary witnesses, and whose work may be referred to here.

For their direct support or stimulation I would kindly love to thank:
Hildegart Stellmacher, Barbara Lubich, Christina Ludwig, Bettina Bruschke, Dieter Gaitzsch, Anja Epperlein, Annekatrin Klepsch, Claudia Blaurock, Olaf Höfler-Mey, Arvidh Aslak Kaniewski, Johannes Schönecker, Thomas Freier, Gunda Ulbricht, Gabriele Atanassow, Konrad Adolph, Danny Jurmann, Manfred Ogrodek, Anne Birkenhauer-Molad, Katharina Wüstefeld, Andrè Lang, Martin Schulze, Johanna Boland, Armin Lorenz, Hugo Jentsch, Jürgen Hobrecht, Giora Zwilling, Gorch Pieken, Ernst Hirsch, Isabel Avila Mora, Cornelius Höppner, Gero Dumrath, Daniel Ristau

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