On 21 August 1943, during the liquidation of the Białystok Ghetto, about 1,200[a] Jewish children were put on trains and taken to Theresienstadt concentration camp, where they were held in isolation from other prisoners.

The reason for the unusual route of the transport is still debated by scholars; it is believed to be connected to Nazi–Jewish negotiations ongoing at the time and the intervention of Mohammad Amin al-Husseini, who feared that the children would settle in Palestine.

[7] The Bratislava Working Group, an underground Jewish organization in Axis-aligned Slovakia, was at the time negotiating indirectly with Heinrich Himmler in hopes of ransoming the lives of all European Jews.

[8] In early 1943, Swiss diplomat Anton Feldscher forwarded a British proposal to the German Foreign Office to allow 5,000 Jewish children to escape from the General Government to Palestine via Sweden.

He claimed that his superiors, Adolf Eichmann and Himmler, were in favor of exchanging Polish Jewish children for prisoners of war.

[12] The intervention of the Mufti is considered by historians Sara Bender and Tobiasz Cyton to be the decisive factor leading to the murder of the children.

Other families were separated by force; survivors testified that Ukrainian auxiliaries murdered some children who tried to run back to their parents.

[18][20] On 20 August, some 1,200[a] children between four and fourteen and a few dozen[c] adult chaperones were marched separately to the Umschlagplatz, where they were given only a small amount of dried bread and no water, despite the heat.

[26] On 24 August 1943, the transport arrived at Theresienstadt[26][27] and the chaperones were separated from the children, except for one young woman who was disguised as a child, and put on a different train.

[28] Despite the fact that Theresienstadt was a concentration camp where more than 30,000 people died,[9][29] the residents were shocked by the poor condition of the children, starving and dressed in ragged clothes; many were shoeless.

[32] Upon reaching the disinfection rooms, some children panicked when their hair was cut and they were asked to undress, believing that they were about to be gassed; they were said to have shouted "Gas!

[15][36][37] Attempting to find out more about the rumors of gas chambers, Fredy Hirsch, a community leader at Theresienstadt, jumped over the fence to speak with the Białystok children but was caught.

[43] In 2014, the story of the Białystok children was commemorated by a German play, Sie hatten so verängstigte Augen ("They had such fear in their eyes") directed by Markus Schuliers.