The Deportation Order, Frankfurt, October 1941

Max L., 58, a retired textile merchant in Frankfurt, has lived through 8 years of escalating restrictions since 1933: the forced Aryanisation of his business, the prohibition on trading, the Night of Broken Glass in 1938. He hesitated to emigrate, held back by elderly parents, by roots, by the hope the storm would pass. His 2 sons left for Palestine in 1939; his wife, his sister-in-law, and he stayed behind.

This October evening of 1941, a Gestapo summons appears in his letterbox. The document orders the family to report on 15 October at 8 a.m. to the community hall, with 50 kilograms of luggage and 50 Reichsmarks. The heading reads: transfer to a collective labour site in the East. Neighbourhood rumours circulate: some think an ordinary labour camp, others say Poland, no one knows exactly.

Max can go into hiding with a trusted non-Jewish acquaintance, asking them to take the risk of a possible denunciation; report with his family to the assembly point as ordered, as almost all summoned families are doing; or make one last attempt to reach Switzerland through underground contacts, with whatever money he has left.