Transport Administration (Transportleitung)

The department in charge of receiving and dispatching transports to and from the Terezín ghetto was set up by the Jewish self-government of the Terezín ghetto after the arrival of the first Aufbaukommando (construction detail) on 24 November 1941. The Transport Administration comprised two groups: one oversaw the movement of prisoners within the ghetto; the other, with a staff of about 75, oversaw the receiving and dispatching of transports. It provided assistance for boarding and disembarking trains, unloading the sick, grouping new prisoners into rows of threes, accompanying them to the ghetto, and collecting their luggage. Arriving at first on foot and later by rail, all of the new prisoners were subjected to security controls and registration in an area called the „sluice“ (šlojska/Schleusse). The sluice was also a processing point for prisoners being deported to the East. The Ústí and Hamburg barracks were used mainly for the receiving and dispatching of transports. Preparatory measures for extensive deportations to the extermination camps at Treblinka and Auschwitz–Birkenau were conducted in up to nine of the buildings in the ghetto.