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The Young Women in the First Auschwitz Transport
(Times of Israel) Renee Ghert-Zand - On March 25, 1942, 997 Slovakian Jewish teenage girls and unmarried young women were deported on the first official transport of Jews to Auschwitz. Told by Slovakian authorities that they would be going away to do government work for just a few months, the Jewish girls and women were actually sold by their government for about $200 apiece as slave labor. Very few of them survived the war. Their story is told in the new book, 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz, by Heather Dune Macadam. When these previously sheltered young women arrived at Auschwitz, there was little there, and the young women were forced to build the camp under grueling conditions. With bare hands, they cleared land, dismantled buildings, moved materials and did agricultural work. It wasn't long before many of the girls started dying from accidents, disease, malnutrition or suicide on the electrified fence. The women of the first transport had an advantage over the Jews who arrived later, many of whom were immediately sent to the gas chambers - including many of the girls' own family members.