News
"Roma - experience of extermination" - educational session online - 23 February 2023
"Roma - experience of extermination" is the title of an online educational session to be held on 23 February 2023. It will be translated simultaneously into English.
The session will be dedicated to the persecution of Roma and Sinti during World War II, the history of the family camp, the so-called Zigeunerlager in the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and the contemporary contexts of functioning of Roma communities.
Program
16.00-16.05 | Inauguration of the session
16.05-16.50 | Persecution of Roma in the Third Reich and occupied countries
Prof. Sławomir Kapralski, KEN Pedagogical University in Cracow
BREAK
17.00-17.45 | The history of the Zigeunerlager in Auschwitz – the recent research
Teresa Wontor-Cichy, Auschwitz Museum Research Center
17.45-18.30 | Contemporary contexts of the functioning of Roma communities
Dr. Joanna Talewicz, Foundation Towards Dialogue
Participation in the session is free. A
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The Roma were considered enemies of the Third Reich by Nazi ideology, and were therefore condemned to isolation and extermination. In February 1943, their deportation to Auschwitz began. A family camp called the Zigeunerlager was established at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The Roma and Sinti incarcerated there came mainly from pre-war Germany, Austria, Czechia and Poland.
The Zigeunerlager in Birkenau existed until 2 August 1944. On the evening of that day, some 4,200-4,300 men, women and children were loaded onto trucks and taken to a gas chamber. It is estimated that about 23,000 Roma and Sinti were imprisoned in Auschwitz, about 21,000 perished in the camp or were murdered in the gas chambers.
Their fate in the camp is told in our online lesson and podcast.