On 16th December Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ordered the deportation of all Roma, Sinti, and “Gypsy relatives” to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Deportations of Gypsies to Auschwitz-Birkenau
The decree marked the transition from scattered persecution to systematic genocide, establishing the Zigeunerlager (“Gypsy Camp”) where tens of thousands perished through disease, forced labour, and mass gassing. On January 29, Himmler ordered to stop deportations of Gypsies married to Germans and those who were obligated to serve in the army, were wounded or received military Auszeichnung after discovering that important German militaries had wives and children deported to the death camp. Some of the SS guards met German gypsies who were combatants of the German military. Some of them were killed before the correction of the order.
“When one of the SS-guards behaved ordinary toward one of the Gypsies, he yelled to him: “You coward, here you fight women and children instead of on the front. I was wounded at Stalingrad, I have a decoration, I am of higher rank.”
Report of a member of the camp resistance movement
August 1943
Further Reading / Source
Naród z popiołów: pamięć zagłady a tożsamość Romów, Warszawa
Sławomir Kapralski – 2012