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 2 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, p.
- ^ Zie: http://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/de/gedenkstaette/historische-orte.html (oktober 2014).
- ^ Bas von Benda-Beckmann, Na het Achterhuis. Anne Frank en de andere onderduikers in de kampen, Amsterdam: Querido, 2020, p. 231-232.