Dortmund

10/28/1938

A woman in a short-sleeved blouse and a man with a hat stand at the partially lowered window of the train (car 3) to take them from Dortmund station to Zbąszyń, expelling them from Germany. She rests her hands on the window. He stands close behind her. Both look away from the camera and to the platform to their right.

Image: Stadtarchiv Dortmund

Annotations

Dortmund, 10/28/1938
Railway passenger cars

Historical context

De­por­ta­ti­on von Dort­mund nach Zbąs­zyń am 28.10.1938

In October 1938, 17,000 Polish Jews were forcibly expelled from the German Reich. Many of them had emigrated there decades earlier or had been born there. Due to the German Nationality Act, they never received a German passport. This first centrally organized mass expulsion to the Polish border was carried out on Himmler’s orders and often coordinated by the state ministries of the interior. On the ground, local police and finance authorities cooperated with the Reichsbahn. On the evening of October 27, the Dortmund Gestapo began arresting men, women, and children in their homes and gathering them together in Steinstraße. Half of the 600 Jews had been born in Dortmund. The next day, they were expelled from the Reich on a passenger train which departed from the freight station. They reached the border at night. In an assembly camp in Zbąszyń, a Jewish relief committee looked after them and more than 7,000 other expellees. Some managed to travel inland or emigrate. Others were able to return to Dortmund briefly for the liquidation of their property. The camp existed until August 1939. The "Polenaktion" (Polish Operation) is regarded as the prelude to extermination.

About the image se­ries

Three black-and-white photographs, presented side by side, were published in the Westfälische Landeszeitung on November 26, 1938, to illustrate an antisemitic newspaper article. The backs therefore cannot be viewed. The photos show seven as yet unidentified men and women looking out of open windows of the third-class passenger train on which they are to be deported from Dortmund to Zbąszyń/Bentschen as part of the "Polenaktion” (Polish Operation). The Reichsbahn deployed the special train at 4 p.m. on October 28, 1938, at what was then the freight station on Treibstraße in the northern area of the main train station. Judging by their clothes, the people in the photo had already taken off their coats and stowed their personal belongings before standing at the train windows. Five of them look into the camera of the photographer who is on the platform. The pictures were probably taken shortly before the train's departure.

Photographer

Un­known, Bild­be­richt­erstat­ter

Provenance

A photo reporter working for the Westfälische Landeszeitung took the three photos, which were printed side by side a month later in the November 26, 1938, edition of the paper. They appeared in the local news section on "Gross-Dortmund” (Greater Dortmund), where they served as illustrations for an antisemitic newspaper article about the expulsion of around 600 Jews with Polish citizenship from Dortmund that had taken place late in October. The author with the initials E. Lö. used the term "deportation," but did not name the destination. It is unclear whether he was the person who took the photos. Nor do we know whether negatives or original prints have survived, or whether any other photos were taken of the situation before the expulsion. The copy of the newspaper is kept in Stadtarchiv Dortmund.

Call num­ber at source ar­chi­ve

Ohne Si­gna­tur

Tit­le at source ar­chi­ve

Ohne Ti­tel

Acknowledgements

The description of the photos is largely based on earlier research by Stadtarchiv Dortmund and in particular by historian Rolf Fischer, who has delved into the deportations starting out from Dortmund.

Text and re­se­arch by Kim Dre­sel.

Kooperationsverbund #LastSeen.
Bilder der NS-Deportationen

Dr. Alina Bothe
Projektleiterin

c/o Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg
Freie Universität Berlin
Habelschwerdter Allee 34A
14195 Berlin
lastseen@zedat.fu-berlin.de