Introduction In a massive arrest operation on February 27, 1943, the National Socialists began the deportation of all non-privileged German Jews still living in the Reich territory and the seizure of all Jews labeled as "Mischlinge" ("half-breeds") or living in a "Mischehe" ("racially mixed marriage.")

In Berlin, as part of the so-called "Factory Action," approximately 10,000 "unprotected" Jews, who did not fall under one of National Socialists' categories of exception, were arrested and interned in four holding centers (two barracks, the Clou concert hall, the synagogue on Levetzowstrasse). By March 6, almost 7,000 of them had been deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp. A portion of the more than 1,000 Jews who were labeled "Mischlinge" or living in "Mischehe" and who, as a result of their "protected status," were not included in these deportations, were held separately in one of the administration buildings of the Jewish community center at Rosenstrasse 2-4 and in a building located at the Grossen Hamburger Strasse. In a public act unprecedented for the Nazi period, hundreds of non-Jewish relatives, primarily wives of the arrested Jewish forced laborers, protested for days in front of Rosenstrasse 2-4, demanding the release of their family members. On March 6, 1943, the detained Jews were discharged from prison. The "protected" Jews who were not deported lived until the end of the war in increasing isolation and under the constant threat of a further radicalization of the Nazi extermination policies. The deportation of all "Mischlinge" and Jews living in "Mischehe" to Theresienstadt, which was planned by the Reich Security Main Office at the beginning of 1945, failed as a result of the advancing Allied troops. A total of more than 50,500 Jews from Berlin were deported to the extermination camps located in the East European countries occupied by Germany.