Mass murder of Sinti and Roma

The first transport arrives at the “Gypsy camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau

Seeking to address what the Third Reich called the “Gypsy question”, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler took action in late 1942 by issuing the “Auschwitz Decree”. Those defined as “Gypsies”, “Gypsy mongrels” or the descendants of Sinti or Roma were to be deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp and housed in a separate “Gypsy camp”.

The first transport arrived on 26 February 1943. Prisoners were tattooed with numbers on their forearm and a black triangle was sewn onto their prison uniform to identify their status as an “asocial”. The hard labour, confined accommodation and miserable hygiene to which the prisoners were subject, and the insufficient rations with which they were issued were designed to bring death through disease and malnutrition. 85 % of the over 22,000 inmates of the “Gypsy camp” had died by 1944. Many were killed during the course of medical experiments carried out by camp doctor Josef Mengele; others were murdered in gas chambers.