The Gypsy Camp

On December 16, 1942, Himmler ordered that all gypsies be interned, since they - like the Jews- should be exterminated. The first gypsy transport, organised by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, reached Auschwitz on February 26, 1943. Many trains followed. Gypsies were not submitted under selections. The gypsy camp was constructed as a family camp, e.g. all family members came to the same camp section. Gypies were brought to Auschwitz from the whole of Central Europe, many thousands of them in a very short time.

But there were also some transports which the SS killed in the gas chambers immediately after their arrival. Mostly, these transports came from the East and were suspected of carrying epidemic diseases.

The SS promised the gypsies that their stay in the camp would only be temporary before they should be resettled in new areas in Eastern Europe. The majority of them died already in the camp because of the disastrous life conditions and the bad treatment by the German prisoners. When infectous diseases broke out in the gypsy camp (above all typhus), the inmates of two blocks were gased "in order to prevent the spread of the epidemic". In spring 1944, the SS started to dissolve the gypsy camp. Men and women able to work were sent to germany to labour assignment, the rest -about 3.000 people - were gassed in the evening of August 6, 1944.