Journey to Bergen-Belsen
In Auschwitz, Anne and Margot, along with Auguste van Pels, were selected for a transport to Bergen-Belsen on 30 October 1944. The train left on 1 November and arrived on 3 November.
In Auschwitz, Anne and Margot, together with Auguste van Pels and about a thousand other women, were selected for a transport to Bergen-Belsen on 30 October 1944.[1] The transport left on the night of 1 November 1944. On departure, everyone was given a piece of bread, sausage or cheese. A barrel of water accompanied each wagon. The train, with about 70 women per locked wagon, regularly stopped and sometimes came under fire.[2] The women did not know the final destination of the transport.[3]
Two days later, on 3 November 1944, the train arrived at a loading platform near Bergen. Witnesses, such as Rachel van Amerongen, Janny Brandes-Brilleslijper and Cato Polak, regularly mentioned Celle as the place of arrival, but the transports arrived at an originally military loading dock, which was two kilometres north of the main entrance to the barracks complex, between the towns of Bergen and Belsen, about 6 kilometres from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.[4]
The prisoners had to line up in blocks of five by five. Accompanied by armed guards with dogs, the women then walked the approximately seven kilometres to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.[5]
Footnotes
- ^ Anne Frank Stichting (AFS), Anne Frank Collectie (AFC), Otto Frank Archief (OFA), reg. code OFA_085: Margot Rosenthal (inmiddels Margret Drach) aan Otto Frank, 24 januari 1957; Familiearchief Anne Frank-Fonds (AFF), Bazel, Otto Frank, AFF_OtF_corr_14: Nanny Blitz aan Otto Frank, 31 oktober 1945. Nanny Blitz schrijft vanuit een sanatorium in Santpoort waar Margot Rosenthal naast haar ligt.
- ^ Willy Lindwer, De laatste zeven maanden. Vrouwen in het spoor van Anne Frank, Hilversum: Gooi & Sticht, 1988, p. 82, 115.
- ^ Lindwer, De laatste zeven maanden, p. 90,126; Odette Abadi, Terre de détresse, Editions L' Harmattan, Parijs, 1995.
- ^ Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen: Die Geschichte der Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen.
- ^ Bas von Benda-Beckmann, Na het Achterhuis. Anne Frank en de andere onderduikers in de kampen, Amsterdam: Querido, 2020, p. 231-232.