Even now, almost three years after we left on our journey to Poland do I receive emails with information about my family from archives around the world.
I have no doubt that without these archives and the dedicated people working there, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to write my book. Without them I wouldn’t have found out what happened to so many of my relatives: How those who survived made their way out of Nazi-Germany, how those who became stateless refugees in other countries struggled to stay alive, and how those who couldn’t get out in time died.
Not long ago I received yet another one of those emails, this time from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) who I contacted when I was putting the book together. They had gone through their International Tracing Service collection and found my great grandfather’s transport card and documents showing him being deported from Berlin to Riga.
It is truly horrible reading. What really gets to me is the contrast between the horrendous crimes committed and the technocratic way in which these crimes were administrated and documented. Like if those deported and murdered were no different from cattle or cans on a supermarket shelf.
Below is the transport card that shows my great grandfather, Hermann Isakowitz, having been deported from Berlin to Riga in January 1942, as well as the transport list for his deportation. Hermann’s name is the sixth from the top on the list. He was on transport number 9 with 1005 other people.
