Last train to Auschwitz

The Nazis used the Dossin Barracks as a transit camp for almost 26,000 Jews, Roma and Sinti during the Second World War. Trains were systematically used to bring them to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. Only five percent of those transported survived the camp.

The last transport left on 31 July 1944. The Germans immediately planned new razzias and ordered that all remaining Jews should be brought to the barracks. No one was to be spared!

The advancing Allied forces disrupted the German plan. By the end of August, the Germans were in retreat. Meanwhile, the tension in the barracks was growing. Rumours of a mass deportation and liquidation circulated. Some detainees made desperate preparations to fight. Fearing a revolt, the Germans tightened security…

There was no uprising in Dossin. On 3 September, the Germans hastily evacuated the barracks, leaving the more than 550 detainees who remained there to their fate. On 4 September, Mechelen was liberated. The city celebrated! For Hélène Beer, a Jew, as for many other detainees, the joy was short-lived: ‘The 27^th transport did not leave, but the others, all those others...’.