In practical terms, banishing Jews from their homes and their towns and cities achieved the physical and cultural destruction of Jewish communities, many of which had existed for centuries. The Jews, including old people and young children, were transported by various means—such as trains, trucks, and ships—and, sometimes, even on foot. Physical conditions on these transports were unbearably harsh, and the deportees often suffered from a lack of food and water, as well as the anxiety and terror of not knowing what awaited them. Many deportees died during the course of the journey.
The transports, similarly to other components of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem,” are an example of how the Nazi regime employed modern technology and a bureaucratic infrastructure to perpetrate crimes against humanity. These included a mass transport system, a railway network that covered the whole of Europe, and the use of advanced organizational and logistical methods. The dispatch of a transport containing several thousand Jews required cooperation and coordination between various bodies in Germany, including the Nazi security services and government offices; e.g., the Ministry of Transport, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Finance, local authorities, and the railway company. The ability to dispatch transports of Jewish deportees beyond Germany’s borders depended on cooperation with relevant authorities in the Axis countries and satellite states. Often in areas under German occupation, local police forces and other auxiliary forces drawn from among the local population aided the operation.
This last fact expands the circle of those involved and responsible for a complex and broad scale system of deportations, including people in a range of positions, from the lowest rungs of the hierarchy: the engine driver transporting the deportees or the railway company clerk who ordered train cars and planned the train schedule. It was a systemized operation which often concluded a few days’ later with the murder of Jewish deportees alongside pre-prepared pits and/or in the gas chambers.
Transports from major towns and cities in Europe, such as Vienna, Paris, or Berlin, and even from rural regions, were usually carried out quite openly. The local non-Jewish communities observed, or were able to observe, their Jewish neighbors being removed from their homes and taken to assembly sites and train stations; they watched as the trains set off on their journey. This transparency differs from other stages of the Final Solution, which the Germans carried out in secret or in relatively remote locations.
The German security authorities often forced the Jewish leadership to participate in organizing the transports: preparing lists of potential deportees and providing various logistical services, which included supplying the deportees with food. This forced cooperation characterized other Nazi activities.
