Deportations of Jews during the Holocaust

In their implementation of the "Final Solution," the Nazis forcibly uprooted millions of Jews from their homes and sent them to their deaths. This systematic campaign marked a tragic and devastating chapter in history, annihilating Jewish communities that had thrived for centuries across areas occupied by Nazi Germany. Victims were often transported directly to extermination camps, while many others were first held in intermediate locations, such as ghettos and concentration camps. The cattle car, used as the primary mode of transportation, became one of the most iconic and haunting symbols of the Holocaust.

Online Exhibition

Deportations of Jews during the Holocaust

Stories of the Last Deportees, June 1944–April 1945

The stories told here are based on material from Yad Vashem's Archives and various collections: personal documentation, testimonies, photographs, artworks, Pages of Testimony, diaries, documents, etc. The details of the deportations and their routes can be found in the online research project, "Transports to Extinction".

Holocaust Education Video Toolbox

The Great Deportation in the Warsaw Ghetto - Abraham Lewin's Diary

"We are the tiny remnants of the greatest Jewish community in the world"

Diary of a Jewish Policeman in the Ghetto

Calel Perechodnik was a Jewish policeman in the Otwock ghetto. Within his role, he took part in an Aktion (roundup) in which 8,000 of the city's Jews were deported, among them his wife Anna and daughter Athalie.

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Resources and Digital Collections

Online Database

The Deportations of Jews Research Project and Digital Database

The Holocaust (Shoah) Deportation Database reconstructs the transports that took place during the Holocaust from territories of the Third Reich, from countries under German occupation, from the Axis states and from the satellite states.

The Online Guide of the Deportations of Jews Research Project

The Deportations of Jews Research Project: Online Guide

Currently, the guide includes the transports that originated from towns and villages in Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece/Macedonia, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Poland between 1939 and 1945.

From the online exhibition

The Last Letter From Aron Liwerant

3 March 1943

"Although meanwhile you are without your parents, don't forget that you must survive, and don't forget to be a Jew as well as a human being."

Aron Liwerant wrote these words on a deportation train in France to his daughter, Berthe.

"We boarded the wagons—about a hundred of us in each one. We stood together, cramped and fearful: old men, babies, pregnant women. In the middle of the wagon, there was a single bucket, the only form of sanitation. Then we heard a loud bang as the doors slammed shut, plunging us into darkness. There was no ventilation. The air grew thick, and soon, we were surrounded by the sound of desperate gasps and quiet sobs. People began to die. In those moments, survival became a brutal contest—fighting over scraps of bread, clutching one another to confirm they were still alive, still holding on."
Helen (Haya) Potash, Lodz