Nazi and Post-war Records of Siegmund Jellinek’s Deportation to
Theresienstadt, August 1942,
and related original poem by granddaughter, PJ, 1998

The reader can derive meaningful context for the documents below, from Siegmund Jellinek’s Biography page and from the first two pages of Leonore Schafer’s letter of October 7, 1952, in which she reports on her own and Siegmund’s experiences in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

English translations of the German text in the five following documents appear in parentheses and/or in purple. Boldface and italics, respectively, indicate numerals and words cited from the German or Czech texts. As usual, bolded words in blue indicate a hyperlink.

Translations and Explanations:

Vermögensverzeichnis (Asset Declaration) and the Totenbuch Theresienstadt: Deportiert aus Österreich (Theresienstadt Book of the Dead: Deported from Austria). (The Totenbuch Theresienstadt hyperlink above, will take the reader to this book’s full bibliographic listing in this website’s Sources section.)

The subtitle of the Vermogensverzeichnis: [the] (following are Jews evacuated to the Eastern Territories)

In the upper right area, we see the hand-written numerals “38/539” and the stamped date of Aug. 27, 1942, the date that the transport departed from Vienna.

The Theresienstadt Book of the Dead explains in its preface that this transport’s full identification code was “IV/9 28. 8. 42 1000.” “IV” was used to identify every one of the approximately 50 transports from Vienna to the Theresienstadt concentration camp., from June 1942 to April 1945. The “9” indicates that this transport was the ninth transport that departed from Vienna to Theresienstadt. The August 28, 1942 date that follows, is the date of arrival in Theresienstadt, a day after the transport’s departure from Vienna, as was usual.

The numeral 1000 indicates the total number of persecuted persons who ‘boarded’ this transport. The numeral “539” indicated that Siegmund J. was the 539th person to ‘board,’ out of the total of 1000 people. The reader can see on page 60. of the Totenbuch Theresienstadt, (the second document shown below) that “9 - 539” appears under Siegmund’s name, as well. It is unclear what the “38,” hand-written before the “539” at the top of the Asset Declaration, signifies.

On the next line we see that Siegmund’s first name (spelled “Sigmund” here) is followed by “Isr.” an abbreviation for “Israel.” We also see that Siegmund inserted “Israel” as his middle name in his signature on the bottom of this document, preceded by the German words translated as signed in front of me: In August 1938, the Nazi regime had ordered that all Jews whose names were not recognizable as “Jewish” adopt the middle name of “Israel” (for Jewish men) or “Sara” (for Jewish women). In Mathilde/Manzie Eckstein’s Asset Declaration, we see that “Sara” was added to her name.

We do not know what kind of identification is referenced in the “Kenn. Nr.” (abbreviation for Kennzahl Nummer - code or identification number) at the end of this first line.

Siemund’s date of birth, (March 17, 1857) and location of birth, the (town of Kanitz) are typed in the second line. Kanitz was in the South Moravian region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire when Siegmund lived there, but today, is in the Czech Republic and is called Dolni Kounice. It is just 15 1/2 miles (25 km.) south of the major Czech city of Brno, in which Hugo Jellinek found ref-uge in 1938, and where Jellinek relatives, such as Siegmund’s brother Eduard and his descendents lived before their deportation or emigration. Jews lived in this small, old town of Kanitz from the late 14th or early 15th century until 1942, when the remaining, greatly diminished community of 53 Jews were deported and murdered in the Nazi killing centers.

Siemund’s last address on Seegasse (the narrow street or lane) named See (lake) is typed on the next line that asks where Siegmund was a resident. The numeral “9” before the street address denotes the 9th district of Vienna.

The heading of the second section of the Vermögensverzeichnis: I declare that I have the following movable assets, rights and claims: Siegmund declared 35 Reichsmarks in cash (corrected from 26 RM and initialed) and 137 Reichsmarks in Empire Insurance.

The absence of entries on the remaining lines: securities, blocked accounts and saving books, insurance policies, household good and furniture, jewelry, or receivables (money owed to him) in the Third Reich or abroad indicate that Siegmund did not declare any of those assets.

The first of the following two title pages of the Totenbuch Thereisenstadt provides the full title of this memorial book:

Theresienstadt Book of the Dead
I
Deported from Austria

We can infer from the Roman numeral “I” included here, that additional books were subsequently published that commemorate persecuted persons deported to Theresienstadt from countries other than Austria.

On the otherwise blank, reverse side of this page, it is stated that the Jewish Committe for Theresienstadt was both the editor and the publisher. We can therefore translate the German words at the bottom of the page as: The Editor and Publisher: [the] Jewish Committee for Theresienstadt, Vienna.

The secondary title page adds the poignant lines:

IN MEMORY
OF ALL THOSE DEPORTED TO THERESIENSTADT FROM AUSTRIA
WHO DID NOT RETURN

Next is a detail of page 60. from the Theresienstadt Book of the Dead that shows the entry on Siegmund Jellinek. We see the “9-539” under his name, indicating, as already noted, that Siegmund was the 539th Jewish person to ‘board’ the 9th transport from Vienna to Theresienstadt. Siegmund’s date of birth and date of death are listed on the right side of the name and transport information.

The last document of this set of documents, related to Siegmund Jellinek’s deportation to Theresienstadt, is from the Opferdatenbanken (Victim Databases) of the DÖW. DÖW is the acronym of the Dokumentaionsharchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (Documentation Archive (aka Centre) of the Austrian Resistance). We see the same basic information that appeared on Siegmund Jellinek’s Vermögensverzeichnis (Asset Declaration) and his listing in the Totenbuch Theresienstadt (The Book of the Dead of the [literally] City of Therezin or in Czech, Terezin: Siegmund’s first and last name, date of birth, that he was deported from Wien (Vienna) to Theresienstadt, the date of his deportation, his last known address in Vienna’s 9th District, on See Lane #9, that Theresienstadt was the place of his death, and that the date of his death was January 30, 1943.

The DÖW’s website, DOEW.at and the article about Theresienstadt in the United States Memorial Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia provide important additional information about how Theresienstadt operated as a “transit camp, ghetto and labor camp, holding pen” and overall, as a “unique tool of Nazi deception.” Of the approximately 144,000 Jews deported to Theresienstadt between November 1941 and May 1945, 33,000 of them died in Theresienstadt itself, mostly from contagious diseases and starvation. Siegmund was in that majority, succumbing to the disease of enteritus. Fuller knowledge of life and death in Theresienstadt, including Jewish courageous resistance manifested in the exceptional spiritual and creative cultural life, can be gleaned from the numerous books, articles, poems, survivor accounts, Vedem, (In the Lead) the magazine published clandestinely by young imprisoned boys, as well as from the exhibits in the Terezin Memorial and Ghetto Museum in the Czech Republic. If we return to Siegmund Jellinek’s Biography page, we can read about Siegmund’s attempt to inspire hope and courage in the people who attended the High Holiday services that he led in Theresienstadt in mid-September 1942.