From July 1942 to mid-September 1944, 97 trains carrying nearly 107,000 Jews, resistance fighters, and Sinti and Roma departed from the Netherlands to concentration and extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen, and Theresienstadt. Almost all of these trains passed through Zuidbroek Station, located between Westerbork and the German border. At the station, the trains had to wait for an oncoming train from the direction of Winschoten or to refill water. This waiting time could last up to two hours.

At first, many local residents did not know who was inside the trains. The wagons were sealed cattle cars, followed by passenger carriages with women, children, and German military personnel. There were also small lookout posts with German soldiers on the roofs of the cattle cars. The sight of the long freight trains led people to assume they were carrying Polish prisoners of war. Contact with those inside the train was impossible—they were not visible, and German soldiers patrolled along the tracks.

Eyewitnesses like Mrs. Olthof-de Vries and Johan Heis, who grew up on a farm near the station, later spoke about their experiences. Mrs. Olthof recalled hearing screams and cries from the wagons while working in the fields but being unable to intervene. She felt powerless. She had heard from an acquaintance that Jews were on the train and that they were being taken to Lunenburg to work. The true destination and fate of these people only became known to her after the war.

Yet, the prisoners sometimes tried to make contact with the outside world. Just before the train moved again, they would throw notes from the wagons. In Westerbork, they had received these cards as so-called "vacation passes," intended to maintain the illusion of normalcy. Local children collected these notes and dropped them in mailboxes. Some of these notes can still be seen today at the Westerbork Camp Memorial Center.

Later in the war, the area around the tracks was more heavily guarded, and people were no longer allowed near the station due to the danger. From that point on, the railway line was secured by young soldiers stationed at the station.