Gypsy Camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau

The so-called ​“Gyp­sy Camp” in Auschwitz, Auschwitz II-Birke­nau, B IIe — from Feb­ru­ary 1943 part of the Auschwitz II-Birke­nau exter­mi­na­tion camp. It was built in response to Himm­ler’s ​“Auschwitz-Erlass”, accord­ing to which all so-called Gyp­sies from the Reich were to be deport­ed to Auschwitz. Approx­i­mate­ly 22 000 Roma and Sin­ti passed through the camp, where the interned fam­i­lies remained togeth­er, most­ly Roma from Ger­many, Aus­tria and the Czech lands. The pris­on­ers were marked with a black tri­an­gle sewn onto their cloth­ing and the let­ter ​“Z” (Ger­man for Zige­uner) tat­tooed on their fore­arms. Only some of the pris­on­ers capa­ble of fur­ther slave labour were trans­ferred from there to oth­er con­cen­tra­tion camps. Thou­sands of oth­er Roma and Sin­ti per­ished either as a result of the appalling con­di­tions in the camp or in the gas cham­bers. Then, on the night of 2 to 3 August 1944, the Ger­mans mur­dered in the gas cham­bers the last three thou­sand or so Roma and Sin­ti still liv­ing in the so-called Gyp­sy Camp.