Deportation transports from Vienna to Maly Trascianec
From mid-May 1942, the first deportation trains left Vienna, each with about 1,000 people. A total of 9,735 people were deported in 10 transports. These people were taken to Maly Trascianec directly after their arrival in Minsk and most of them were shot there in the forest. Only a few were obliged to do forced labour; merely 17 survivors from Vienna are known.
From the collection camps in Vienna the transport took place in open trucks, these drove via Schwedenplatz, Ringstraße and Ungarstraße to the Aspang railway station, from where the transports set off in the direction of Maly Trascianec. Emil Gottesmann describes this as follows:
“They were taken from the camp to the train station in trucks. The trucks were led through the streets of Vienna, that was already known, you could see that. The cars were open at the back, so you could see that people were sitting inside. At the Aspang train station in the 3rd district there was a whole train set for the approx. 1000 people from the transport. The Aspang railway station was intended for such transports. Such a transport left every 14 days, and the whole station was somehow cordoned off. The loading and so on only took a few hours, and then it was done. [...]" [1]
Deportation transport of 6 May 1942
Already from noon on, the people selected for deportation were forced to board the wagons, and the train departed in the evening at around 7 pm. After more than two full days, the train arrived at Volkovysk station late in the evening; the deportees had to leave the train and change into cattle wagons. This process, referred to in the Schutzpolizei reports as "Umwaggonierung" (changing wagons), took several hours. Shortly before 3 a.m. the train started moving again and reached the station in Koidanova in the afternoon of 9 May 1942. Five women and three men had not survived the transport to that point. Since it was Saturday – thus the weekend – the security service of the Reichsführer SS (SD) in Minsk transmitted the order to stop the train in Koidanova. Only on Monday did the train cover the last 50 kilometres or so to Minsk, from where the people were taken by lorry to Maly Trascianec.
Experience report of the security team
It is hard to imagine what conditions were like on the deportation trains from Vienna to Maly Trascianec. But some sources document the circumstances of those deportations and give us an idea of how the numerous forced deportees may have experienced the journey to their murder. We know, for example, that even before departure, people were stripped of their luggage and had to spend the several-day journey crowded into wagons without their possessions, where they were exposed to the weather without protection. Witnesses reported extreme cold and heat and a lack of water, which depended on the mood of the guards. In addition, there was a high degree of physical and psychological violence, which claimed its victims already on the way to the place of extermination in Maly Trascianec. Wolf Seiler, who was deported to Maly Trascianec on 6 May 1942 and survived, impressively describes these oppressive conditions in his report as follows:
"Many who could not find their way around so quickly felt the boots of the SS, and the elderly were left lying on the platform under the blows of clubs. - That night many had lost their minds and had gone insane. The transport command gave the order to lock all the insane people in a separate wagon. What happened in that wagon is almost indescribable."[2]
Sources:
[2] Report of a Viennese survivor (Wolf Seiler), undated (DÖW 854, transcript with explanations attached), p.1, https://www.doew.at/cms/download/6kqj3/854-2.pdf.