On 16 December 1942, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) issued an order to send Sinti and Roma to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. The ‘Auschwitz Decree’ is widely regarded as a decisive turning point towards a policy aimed at the murder of Sinti and Roma in Germany and the German-occupied countries, primarily in Western Europe. By that time, thousands of Romani people had already been murdered in various occupied or collaborating countries in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe.
On the basis of the decree, around 21,000 Sinti and Roma were registered in Camp Section BIIe in Birkenau from late February 1943 to July 1944, while a further 1,700 Roma from Bialystok were not registered. Around 2,700 of these deportees were selected in May and September 1943 and murdered in the gas chambers, and around 12,000 died by July 1944 from starvation, disease or violence perpetrated by members of the Schutzstaffel (SS). Around 3,700 Sinti and Roma were transferred to other concentration camps for forced labour. The remaining approximately 4,300 men, women and children were murdered in the gas chambers on the evening of 2 August 1944.1See the calculations by Kubica and Setkiewicz, “The Last Stage in the Existence of the Birkenau Zigeunerlager,” 268–270; Setkiewicz, “Zigeunerlager in KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau,” 327 f.
Background
By the turn of the year 1942/43, no decision had yet been taken to treat the deported Sinti and Roma in the same manner as persecuted Jews. From the summer of 1942 onwards, SS doctors carried out regular selections on the trains carrying Jewish men and women arriving at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, in order to send the vast majority of them to the gas chambers for subsequent murder. By contrast, Sinti and Roma arriving from 26 February 1943 onwards were not subjected to such selections nor were they separated by gender; instead, the adults were sent together to a separate section of the Birkenau camp—Camp Section BIIe—along with the children and young people. For this reason, Camp Section BIIe was also referred to by the camp SS as ‘Familienlager’ (‘Family Camp’) or ‘Zigeunerfamilienlager’ (‘Gypsy Family Camp’).
According to the memoir written by SS-Rottenführer Pery Broad (1921–1993) while he was a British prisoner of war in the summer of 1945, the Reich Security Main Office—Department V, Reich Criminal Police Office (RKPA)—informed the camp command in February 1943 of the arrival of ‘several thousand Gypsies’ and pointed out that they ‘should not to be treated like Jews for the time being’.2Bezwińska and Czech, KL Auschwitz seen by the SS, 188. Broad had served in the Political Department of Auschwitz concentration camp from summer 1942 to January 1945 and was also deployed in Camp Section BIIe. Rudolf Höss (1901–1947), camp commandant of the entire camp complex from May 1940 to November 1943, recorded similar information in his postwar report written in Polish custody in 1946/47. It states: ‘Those transported to Auschwitz were to be kept there for the rest of the war in a family camp.’3Ibid., 63.
Himmler’s interest in so-called ‘pure-bred Gypsies’, whom he envisaged confining on a ‘specific territory’, and the activities of the SS Ahnenerbe under his command may have contributed to his initial intention to isolate Sinti and Roma in a camp.4Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid, 297–304; Luchterhandt, Der Weg nach Auschwitz, 235–242. Fings, “A ‘Wannsee Conference’ on the Extermination of the Gypsies?,” 185–187, 193. Höß was aware of Himmler‘s ideas, and in April 1943 the Auschwitz camp administration asked the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (SS-WVHA) for better provisions for pregnant women, infants and young children, ‘pointing out that the Reichsführer-SS wished this because he had special plans for the Gypsies.’5Bundesarchiv [Federal Archives] Berlin, NS 19/180, fol. 3, The Head of the SS Economic Administration Main Office, Oswald Pohl, to SS-Obersturmbannführer Brandt, Personal Staff of the Reichsführer-SS, 9 April 1943.
None of this, however, made any difference to the inmates’ chances of survival. Although their placement in a separate camp section suggests that their transfer to Auschwitz-Birkenau was not accompanied by a direct order to kill them, the reality of camp life, marked by systematic violence and deprivation, meant that by the end of 1943 fewer than 10,000 men, women and children of the approximately 18,700 people deported to Camp Section BIIe up to that point were still alive.6See the statistics in Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Memorial Book, vol. 2, 1475 f: in 1943, 18,736 Sinti and Roma were registered in Camp Section BIIe, and on the basis of the – albeit not entirely decipherable – “Ledger of the Gypsy Camp,” 7,359 deaths can be verified for 1943. See also the diagram in Setkiewicz, “Zigeunerlager in KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau,” 310. Höß claimed after 1945 that Himmler personally made the decision to murder the Sinti and Roma on site during an alleged inspection of Camp Section BIIe, in view of the overcrowded barracks and in full knowledge of the high mortality rate, but there is no evidence to support that claim.7KL Auschwitz seen by the SS, 65 f.; Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid, 340. Höss made this claim in connection with a visit by Himmler that took place from 17 to 18 July 1942, prior to the mass deportations of Sinti and Roma. Himmler did not visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in either 1943 or 1944.8Setkiewicz, “Zigeunerlager in KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau,” 319.
Decisions in the Spring and Early Summer of 1944
It is not known when and where Himmler issued the order to murder, nor in what form it was given. It is undisputed, however, that it was Himmler—in his capacity as Reichsführer-SS and Head of the German Police, to whom the Reich Security Main Office and the SS-WVHA were subordinate—who held the full power of disposal over the Sinti and Roma and made this decision. As with the murder of the Jewish population in Europe, it must also be assumed that there was no written order to kill issued from the highest authority (‘Führerbefehl’) for the murder of the Sinti and Roma. Indeed, no such written order was required.9Longerich, Der ungeschriebene Befehl. It is also obvious that Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) was informed and aware of what was happening.
The murders of the Sinti and Roma in Auschwitz-Birkenau can be attributed to a number of reasons; a wide range of individuals were involved. The need for forced labour from concentration camp prisoners was very high due to war-related shortages. In this context, the SS-WVHA turned to the Sinti and Roma held in Camp Section BIIe: In four transports—on 15 April and 24 May—a total of 695 women and 965 men were declared as ‘fit for work’ and transferred to the Buchenwald, Flossenbürg and Ravensbrück concentration camps.10Setkiewicz and Lachendro, Kalendarz wydarzeń w KL Auschwitz, vol. 4, 1492, 1538. Historian Martin Luchterhandt interprets this development as a sign that the ‘special status’ of Sinti and Roma—i.e. their concentration in a single camp—had been revoked by mid-April 1944, suggesting that the decision to ‘liquidate’ Camp Section BIIe had already been taken at that time.11Luchterhandt, Der Weg nach Birkenau, 303. It is unlikely, however, that Höß decided on the ‘liquidation’ of the camp at that time on his own, as Luchterhandt suggests. Höß was still in Berlin in April 1944.
However, the dissolution of Camp Section BIIe was linked not only to the recruitment of forced labourers, but also to preparations for the deportation and murder of more than 430,000 Jewish men and women from Hungary and the Hungarian-occupied territories. These deportations began following the German occupation of Hungary on 19 March 1944. Höß, who at that time was head of Amt D I [Zentralamt] in the SS-WVHA in Berlin,12The ‘Zentralamt’ [Central Office] was responsible for the ‘treatment of prisoners’ in the concentration camps; this encompassed general regulations for prisoners and guard units as well as disciplinary measures against them, but also the coordination of all individual and mass murder operations in the concentration camps. See Tuchel, Die Inspektion der Konzentrationslager, 94. was tasked with carrying out this crime at Auschwitz-Birkenau and, in early May 1944, resumed command of the Auschwitz camp complex in his capacity as ‘Standortältester’ [Senior officer].13Arthur Liebehenschel, Standortbefehl no. 14/44 dated 8.5.1944, reproduced in Frei et al., Standort- und Kommandanturbefehle, 445 f.
In the second half of May, following the arrival of the first deportation trains on 16 May 1944, Jewish women from Hungary—whose fate had not yet been decided by the SS—were housed in a separate part of Camp Section BIIe until their murder. Thereafter, barracks 3 to 18 were mainly used to hold Jewish men from Hungary who, by July 1944, constituted nearly half of the prisoners held there.14Setkiewicz, “Zigeunerlager in KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau,” 251–254.
In July 1944, the area of Camp Section BIIb which since 8 September 1943 had housed a further ‘family camp’ with Jewish men and women from the Theresienstadt ghetto was cleared. During the night of 10 to 11 July, and again during the night of 12 July 1944, the SS murdered the 7,000 inmates still held there. Given the proximity in time of the murders of the inmates from the two ‘family camps’, historian Franciszek Piper (born 1941) suggested that in view of the Allied advance on all fronts, Himmler would no longerhave considered it ‘necessary to camouflage this type of mass extermination’.15Piper, “Familienlager,” 298.
A few weeks earlier, on 16 June 1944, a high-ranking SS official from Berlin, Oswald Pohl (1892–1951), the head of the SS-WVHA, had visited the Auschwitz camp complex to organise construction measures, in preparation among other things for the mass killing euphemistically termed the ‘Judenaktion’. His inspection made him aware of the situation of the Sinti and Roma:16Setkiewicz and Lachendro, Kalendarz wydarzeń w KL Auschwitz, vol. 4, 1576. In the SS’s logic, sick, elderly and unfit prisoners were of no use whatsoever, and this is likely to have reinforced the decision to murder those suffering the effects of systematic violence and deprivation.
At the same time, the RKPA became involved in discussions about the Sinti and Roma inmates. In his search for suitable prisoners for experiments on making seawater drinkable, the Reich Medical Officer for the SS and Police, Ernst Robert Grawitz (1899–1945), had been instructed by Himmler on 15 May 1944 to make various enquiries. In response, Arthur Nebe (1894–1945), the head of the RKPA, proposed using Sinti and Roma in the Auschwitz concentration camp for this purpose. He went on to state: ‘I shall shortly submit a special proposal to the Reichsführer regarding these Gypsy people…’.17Harvard Law School Library, Nuremberg Trials Project, Item No. 1181, NO-179, Ernst Grawitz, Letter to Heinrich Himmler concerning the seawater experiments, 28 June 1944. The details of this proposal have not been recorded. Historian Michael Zimmermann (1951–2007) argued that Nebe may have recalled a suggestion made by the RKPA from November 1942 concerning the treatment of former Wehrmacht soldiers among the Sinti and Roma population. According to Zimmermann, it was Nebe who ‘raised the issue of linking forced sterilisation, release and military service’.18Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid, 341.
Preparations
Zimmermann’s suggestion is supported by survivor testimonies indicating that, on the orders of the Rapportführer Georg (also Paul) Bonigut (1913–unknown)19SS-Unterscharführer Bonigut was camp commander of Camp Section BIIe from April to early August 1944, meaning that the guard units were under his command., lists were to be compiled of those who had done military service and received special honours during the First World War, as well as of members of the Wehrmacht among Sinti and Roma families.20Luchterhandt, Der Weg nach Birkenau, 300 f., quotes the survivor Hilli Weiß (1918–unknown), who worked in the office of Camp Section BIIe. Weiß dated this instruction to mid-May 1944. The men selected in this way were to be treated separately, together with their relatives. Furthermore, there are reports of selections based on the criterion of fitness for labour, which are said to have taken place around mid-July 1944.21Ibid.
These developments also coincide with a series of transfers of prisoners. Based on archival documents preserved in the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, historian Piotr Setkiewicz (born 1963) concludes that from 16 to 18 July 1944, prisoners from selected groups—over 500 women and girls, as well as approximately 1,400 men and boys—were transferred from Camp Section BIIe to the Auschwitz main camp, into blocks 9 and 10. The buildings were isolated from the rest of the camp grounds by a makeshift fence.22Setkiewicz, “Zigeunerlager in KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau,” 321–23.
The transfers caused great unrest and despair among the families. The Jewish survivor Lucie Adelsberger (1895–1971), who was working as a doctor in the ‘orphan block’ of Camp Section BIIe, recalled that ‘the removal of workers from a camp always was an evil omen, especially when, as in this instance, the women and children were left behind.’23Adelsberger, Auschwitz, 87.
According to Pery Broad, news of the order to murder the Sinti and Roma who were unfit for work had already circulated among camp personnel in the first half of July 1944. In his memoir of 1945, he writes: ‘Berlin wanted to exterminate the Gypsies, but it seemed that Berlin was afraid to go to extremes and so procrastinated for a considerable time before coming to a final decision. The dice were thrown in July, 1944. Himmler commanded to keep in camps those fit to work and to gas the rest.’24KL Auschwitz seen by the SS, 189. For the dating, I follow Setkiewicz, “Zigeunerlager in KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau,” 321, who interprets ‘July 1944’ as ‘the first half of July’ in light of the sequence of events.
On 29 July 1944, following the completion of the murder of most of the Jews from Hungary and shortly before the murders of the Sinti and Roma, Höss returned to Berlin and handed over the position of ‘Standortältester’ to Richard Baer (1911–1963).25Richard Baer, Standortbefehl no. 20/44 dated 29.7.1944, reproduced in Frei et al., Standort- und Kommandanturbefehle, 475 f. On 1 August 1944, Georg Bonigut is said to have visited prisoners known to him in the ‘office’ of Camp Section BIIe, informed them of the impending murder of the camp inmates, and announced that he would report sick for the following day. Due to Bonigut’s absence, responsibility for carrying out the murders of 2 August thus lay primarily with SS-Hauptsturmführer Johann Schwarzhuber (1904–1947) as camp commander of the men’s camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and SS-Unterscharführer Fritz Buntrock (1909–1948), acting on Bonigut’s behalf as the reporting officer of Camp Section BIIe. The SS camp doctor Josef Mengele (1911–1979) was also present on 2 August and issued orders to prisoner functionaries, but was not, as is often claimed, the leader of the killing operation.26Setkiewicz, “Zigeunerlager in KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau,” 324.
2 August 1944
The Sinti and Roma remaining in Camp Section BIIe were well aware of the mortal danger they faced, especially as they had witnessed the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews at close quarters. The survivor Hermine Horvath (1925–1958) recalled: ‘We were often put under block lockdown. No one was allowed to go out or even look out. That was the surest sign that thousands were once again being driven to their deaths. […] The stench of burnt human flesh hung heavy and persistent in the air. It was about 200–300 metres from us to the crematorium.’27Hermine Horvath, cited in Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Memorial Book, vol. 2, 1515. Translated from German by Eve Rosenhaft. Survivor Franz Wirbel (1922–1986) described the ‘ever-present fear of the four huge crematoria, which were almost always burning… and everyone secretly wondered which of us would be next’ as a ‘memory that overshadowed everything’.28Archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Franz Wirbel, 1979, fol. 16 f., cited in Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid, 342. Translated from German by Eve Rosenhaft.
The camp SS must have been equally aware that any attempt to take the Sinti and Roma to the gas chambers would be met with fierce resistance. This was the reason why those in charge staged a spectacle unique in the history of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.29There are many accounts of the events of 2 August 1944, though these differ significantly in terms of details and dates. In the following, unless otherwise stated, the account is primarily based on Setkiewicz, “Zigeunerlager in KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau,” 324–326, which draws on testimonies from prisoners (none of whom were Sinti or Roma) held in the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Around midday on 2 August—a Wednesday—an empty goods train drove through the main gate onto the tracks. Shortly afterwards, the Sinti and Roma who had been transferred to the Auschwitz main camp in July were brought back on foot30Survivors from this group recall having been transported to the camp by train, for example Winter, Winter Time, 87. and allowed to bid farewell to their relatives through the camp fence. The SS told the latter that they too would soon be reunited with their families.31For example, Franz Wirbel in Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Memorial Book, vol. 2, 1540; Schmidt, Gott hat mit mir etwas vorgehabt, 53. After they had been loaded onto the carriages, the carriage doors remained open for a while. The farewells lasted about three hours before the train departed.
Once the train had left, the electrified camp fence was reactivated and a block lockdown was imposed, forcing everyone who remained to return to the barracks. A camp-wide lockdown was also imposed on the entire Birkenau camp.32Setkiewicz and Lachendro, Kalendarz wydarzeń w KL Auschwitz, vol. 4, 1660. Prior to this, all Polish doctors and male nurses had been transferred to the men’s camp, while the Polish female nurses had been moved to the women’s camp. Alongside the Sinti and Roma, only prisoner functionaries and Jewish doctors and nurses remained behind.33Adelsberger, Auschwitz, 111. In the early evening, a large, heavily armed group of SS men entered Camp Section BIIe and took up positions along the camp fence. They were followed by another group of guards, as well as SS men who arrived on motorcycles and in lorries. Prisoner labourers from the camp section and from the neighbouring men’s camp BIId were conscripted to ‘clear’ the ‘Gypsy camp’. After the evening roll call, the windows and doors of the barracks were boarded up from the outside so that no one could escape.34According to the Polish survivor Marian Perski, born in 1920, who was employed as a prisoner-officer in the canteen of Camp Section BIIe. Archives of the Auschwitz State Museum, Testimonies, vol. 61, 197–200, cited in Kapralski et al., Roma in Auschwitz, 89.
Subsequently, the removal of the inmates began block by block; by this stage, most inmates understood that they were facing death. Resistance was fierce and widespread, as, among many others, the Polish political prisoner Alfred Fiderkiewicz (1886–1972) attested: ‘The Gypsy barrack opposite ours was closed. The SS men tried to open the door; it was presumably barricaded from the inside. The rotten planks were prised out with bars. A group of SS men burst into the barrack. We heard shooting, gunshots, but no one came out. Another group of SS men burst into the barrack. A moment later we saw two young Gypsy women being dragged out, screaming shrilly. Other women attacked, scratching the faces of their oppressors, who had to fend them off with their pistol butts. SS men grabbed the feet of children fiercely defended by an elderly Gypsy, but a single kick was enough to overpower a Gypsy man before he was dragged to the truck. No one left the barrack without resisting. Every step was fought over. We heard the shouting of the SS men and the screaming of the Gypsies. The fiercest resistance was put up by women—who were younger and stronger—defending their children. The struggle continued right up to dusk and it seems that the SS did not manage to get anyone into the trucks who did not resist.’35Fiderkiewicz, Brzezinka, 273 f., cited according to the English translation in Kubica and Setkiewicz, “The Last Stage in the Existence of the Birkenau Zigeunerlager,” 253.
Lucie Adelsberger, who had taken refuge in the block housing infectious patients while the block was under lockdown, held out there with other Jewish doctors until the clearing of the barrack at around 11.00 pm. She recalled: ‘People are ripped out of their beds, packed like bundles and transported away. […] We stand by and watch it all, helplessly. A few minutes later the block is empty. Each individual bed is checked one more time, sticks are poked around under the mattresses, every corner of the block is scanned with lights. Then they bolt the doors again and the SS disappear with their victims.’36Adelsberger, Auschwitz, 90.
The loaded lorries drove to Crematorium V,37Setkiewicz and Lachendro, Kalendarz wydarzeń w KL Auschwitz, vol. 4, 1660. where the victims were herded group by group into the undressing rooms and then into the gas chamber. The murder of the Sinti and Roma was supervised by Schwarzhuber, commandant of Birkenau Josef Kramer (1906–1945), and SS-Hauptscharführer Otto Moll (1915–1946), who was responsible for all the crematoria and the prisoners deployed there and who was notorious for his cruelty, together with other SS leaders and physicians. Filip Müller (1922–2013), a Slovak Jew and one of the few survivors of the Sonderkommando38Zwangsarbeitskommandos [Forced Labour units] consisted of Jewish prisoners who were deployed to prepare for and carry out the murders in the gas chambers, including the incineration of the bodies in crematoria or mass graves. At regular intervals, these prisoners were murdered and replaced by others. Of the total of around 2,200 prisoners in the Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz-Birkenau, only about 110 survived. deployed that night, recalled: ‘Towards midnight the changing room was full of people. With every minute that passed the alarm increased. […] On all sides sounded cries of despair, lamentations, and reproachful accusations. […] Others shouted: “We want to live! Why do you want to kill us?” […] But in this dismal place there was no room for sentiment. The extermination routine took its usual course. Moll and his helpers cocked their pistols and rifles, and, in a tone that allowed for no misunderstanding, instructed the people, who meanwhile had undressed, to leave the changing room at once and go into those three rooms in which they were to be gassed.’39Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, 151. Since the crematorium ovens were not in operation at that time, the bodies of the murdered victims were incinerated in pits next to the crematorium.40Setkiewicz and Lachendro, Kalendarz wydarzeń w KL Auschwitz, vol. 4, 1660.
Not all Sinti and Roma from Camp Section BIIe were murdered in the gas chambers that evening and night. An unknown number of men, women and children were shot by SS men during the ‘clearance’ of the camp because they resisted removal. Marian Perski (1920–unknown) testified: ‘Apparently, as I heard, the Gypsies realised what was going on and attacked the SS men, who used their weapons, because shouts and the sound of gunshots reached our ears.’41Archives of the Auschwitz State Museum, Testimonies, vol. 61, 197–200, cited in Kapralski et al., Roma in Auschwitz, 89.
Accounts differ regarding the fate of the twins who had been subjected to Josef Mengele’s experiments. Some testimonies claim that Josef Mengele personally shot 24 children—all of them twins—in the antechamber of a crematorium.42Kubica, “Sinti- und Romakinder,” 328. Tadeusz Joachimowski (1908–1979), a Polish political prisoner who worked in the office of Camp Section BIIe, reported that Mengele had the twin children transported to the main camp, where they were not admitted. The shootings are said to have taken place in Crematorium II. See the transcript of Tadeusz Joachimowski’s witness testimony before the District Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Kraków, 2 July 1968, reproduced in Geigges et al., Zigeuner heute, 284–288. Joachimowski refers to Mieczysław Morawa (1920–1945), a prisoner who had been assigned to the crematorium, who had told him about this. The survivor Miklós Nyiszli (1901–1956), however, recalled that Mengele had marked the children’s upper bodies with the letters ‘ZS’ for ‘Zur Sektion’ (to the dissection room), indicating that their bodies were to be sent to the dissection room rather than cremated after death in the gas chamber.43Nyiszli, Im Jenseits der Menschlichkeit, 91.
The killings did not end with the night of 2 August. On the morning of 3 August, SS men combed through the camp section and personally murdered the children who had remained in hiding overnight or had not been discovered.44Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid, 343. Before she was transferred back to the women’s concentration camp at that day, Lucie Adelsberger witnessed three further crimes: ‘One woman had actually managed to find a hiding place, but she turned up later on and was delivered to the camp leader. Two children, one aged three and the other five, had slept through the whole thing all bundled up in their blankets. They emerged from the orphan’s block the next morning, hand in hand and crying for fear and abandonment. They were sent on afterwards.’45Adelsberger, Auschwitz, 90.
In 2015, the European Parliament declared 2 August as European Holocaust Remembrance Day for Sinti and Roma.
