Just like with the previous departure (of the 12th and 13th convoy of 10 October 1942), the 14th and 15th convoy were formed separately, but they formed one transport. The formation of the 14th convoy, which started on October 10, took 11 days. It consisted of 996 deportees, but only one of them managed to escape before the border. There were also 130 children.
In the 15th convoy, which was formed differently, were only 43 children. It consisted of only 476 people, most of whom, 238, were "forced laborers". They came from the camps of the Organization Todt in Charleville and Rochelle.
The decision to evacuate those who were forced to work in northern France dated from 25 September 1942. SS General Eggert Reeder, the head of the military administration in Belgium and northern France, had a meeting with SS Major Ernst Ehlers, the deputy of the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service under his local authority. He had him summoned because of the "abuses" of his agents in bringing the deportees together for the final solution. The military administration feared that this would "have serious consequences from a political point of view" in the relations with the Belgian government.
The detachment of the National Security was instructed "to carry out the action in such a way that it would attract as little attention as possible from public opinion and that it would not arouse sympathy for the Jews among the population". But having said this, the military authorities allowed the political police to register Jewish aliens who had been brought together in northern France by their care. They were the most numerous: in total 2252 Jewish forced workers were deported to the buildings of the Atlantic Wall between 13 June and 12 September.
Of the seven convoys formed in Belgium, four departed from Antwerp, the first on July 13, the second on July 14, the third on August 15 and the last on September 12. Three other convoys departed from other "Jewish cities": from Brussels on 26 June, from Charleroi on 31 July and from Liège on 3 August. The occupier made use of the National Labor Office, a Belgian organization and the Belgian municipal police officers to call the deportees together to the assembly points.
The so-called "anti-socials" were called. These were Jews who were unemployed from May 1942 due to the "removal of the Jews from economic life”. Most of them, 1641, all of foreign nationality, were returned to Mechelen before 31 October 1942, after the agreement of 25 September 1942..
Thanks to this support, the assembly camp was able to form the convoys of the end of October. The Jewish round-up’s were no longer sufficient to complete the convoys. The Jewish rebellion, now common, compromised the finish of the final solution in the area.
The 1471 deportees of the 14th and 15th convoy arrived in Auschwitz on 26 October 1942. The transport has not stopped in Kozel, like the previous one. The eradication figure, 60.8%, is nevertheless lower due to the massive presence of "laborers". More than half of the male deportees were not sent to the gas chamber. Most of the 895 deportees who were immediately killed were women. Of the 576 people who were registered in the camp, only 41 survived the liberation of the camps, barely 15 of the 14th convoy, which was nevertheless the most numerous. The survival rate of the 15th convoy, 5.5%, was one of the highest of the entire deportation in the year 1942.
Source: The Memorial of the deportation of the Belgian Jews, pages 27 and 28.