Arrival
On the morning of 26 May 1944 the special deportation train carrying Lili Jacob and her family as well as around 3,500 other Jews arrived in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. It was one of four transports of prisoners from the Beregszász ghetto with which some 10,000 people from the north-eastern part of Carpathian Ruthenia (now part of Ukraine) were deported to Auschwitz.
For two days men, women and children travelled in overcrowded goods wagons, mostly from the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Railway), to an unknown fate.
For this “Hungary Action”, as the SS called it, a new railway siding with an unloading ramp was specially taken into operation. It ended in the immediate vicinity of the crematories. Upon arrival the doors of the special trains were opened and the people were forced to descend from the cars, often under blows from the SS guard units.
They had to leave their rucksacks with clothing, food and papers, but also their personal keepsakes such as photos, letters and jewellery, right at the track.