Verhaal

Jacob & transport VI

Door: Ella Levie

Jacob van Rijn was on Mechelen Transport VI with his wife, Cato, that departed from Mechelen, Belgium, on 29 August 1942. 

On 31 August 1942, the train stoped in Cosel, Germany. All men between the ages of 15-50 were ordered off the train. 267 men on this transport fell into the 15-50 age range, and 248 departed the train at Cosel. It is likely that Jacob (and several other men aboard the transport) complied with the order.

The men from Transport VI who departed at Cosel were transferred to Groß Rosen, and from there, scattered to several forced labor camps such as Gogolin, Klein Mangersdorf, and Babitz. Most of those removed at Cosel from Transport VI were enslaved building the Berlin-Breslau-Krakow highway. The Cosel-departees who were still alive in October 1943 were transported to Warsaw to clean up the freshly liquidated ghetto.

Jacob van Rijn likely died in one of these forced labor camps.