News
The Place Where More than 20,000 Roma Died
August 2 marked the 58th anniversary of the "liquidation" of the so-called "Gypsy family camp" in Birkenau. The last Roma left alive there—almost 3,000 men, women, and children—were murdered in the gas chambers. The Zigeunerlager [Gypsy camp] was founded in February 1943 on orders from Himmler, who ordered the deportation of the Roma who had not yet been expelled from the German Reich, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
In his opening remarks at the ceremony, the president of the Association of Polish Roma called for compensation for the Roma victims of Nazism. "Decades after the fall of Nazism, its victims are still alive," he said. "Let us not permit heartlessness to finish the awful work of hatred."
Approximately 20,000 of the 23,000 Gypsies who went through Auschwitz perished there. The others were transferred to other camps, where they labored in industry and, in some cases, were subjected to medical experiments. For the European Roma, as for the Jews, the Auschwitz Death Camp became a symbol of the effort to exterminate them totally. It is estimated that approximately 50% of the Gypsies living in German-occupied territory died as a result of persecution and terror during the years of the Third Reich.
Polish and local Oświęcim government officials, and diplomats representing the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, the Russian Federation, Israel, and the USA, joined Roma dignitaries in the commemorations.
