of 7,000 women to Auschwitz and 13,000 men to Majdanek as forced laborers. Department 14 organized the deportations, while the Slovak Transport Ministry provided the cattle cars. Lists of those to be deported were drawn up by Department 14 based on statistical data provided by the Jewish Center's Department for Special Tasks. At the border station in Zwardon, the Hlinka Guard handed the transports off to the German . Slovak officials promised that deportees would be allowed to return home after a fixed period, and many Jews initially believed that it was better to report for deportation rather than risk reprisals against their families. On 25 March 1942, the first transport departed from Poprad transit camp for Auschwitz with 1,000 unmarried Jewish women between the ages of 16 and 45. During the first wave of deportations (which ended on 2 April), 6,000 young, single Jews were deported to Auschwitz and Majdanek. Members of the Hlinka Guard, the , and the gendarmerie were in charge of rounding up the Jews, guarding the transit centers, and eventually forcing them into train cars for deportation. A German officer was stationed at each of the concentration centers. Official exemptions were supposed to keep certain Jews from being deported, but local authorities sometimes deported exemption-holders. The victims were given only four hours' warning, to prevent them from escaping. Beatings and forcible shaving were commonplace, as was subjecting Jews to invasive searches to uncover hidden valuables. Although some guards and local officials accepted bribes to keep Jews off the transports, the victim would typically be deported on the next train. Others took advantage of their power to rape Jewish women. Jews were only allowed to bring of personal items with them, but even this was frequently stolen. Family transports Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the Reich Security Main Office, visited Bratislava on 10 April, and he and Tuka agreed that further deportations would target whole families and eventually remove all Jews from Slovakia. The family transports began on 11 April, and took their victims to the Lublin District. During the first half of June 1942 ten transports stopped briefly at Majdanek, where able-bodied men were selected for labor; the trains continued to Sobibor extermination camp, where the remaining victims were murdered. Most of the trains brought their victims (30,000 in total) to ghettos whose inhabitants had been recently deported to the Bełżec or Sobibor extermination camps.