An order issued by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) on 16 December 1942 is referred to as the ‘Auschwitz Decree’. With this order, Himmler ordered the ‘committal of Gypsy mongrels, Ròm Gypsies and Balkan Gypsies to a concentration camp’. The choice of words for the group of people affected by the deportation was based on the racist categorisation of the Racial Hygiene Research Unit [Rassenhygienische Forschungsstelle, RHF]. The order with the file reference Tgb. No. I 2652/42 Ad./RF/V has not survived. Its existence is only documented on the basis of an express order [Schnellbrief] dated 29 January 1943, in which the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) gave detailed instructions for its implementation.1 Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), VA2 Nr. 59/43g, Schnellbrief betr. ‘Einweisung von Zigeunermischlingen, Ròm-Zigeunern und balkanischen Zigeunern in ein Konzentrationslager’, 29 January 1943, in RSHA, Vorbeugende Verbrechensbekämpfung, 322–327. Luchterhandt, Der Weg nach Auschwitz, 240, surmises that Himmler’s order could have been an internal instruction—possibly only given verbally—which was then noted down in the ‘diary’ (registration of postal traffic in the business operations of an administration).
The Auschwitz Decree triggered deportations of Sinti and Roma from several countries to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, beginning on 26 February 1943 and lasting until at least 21 July 1944. It affected 22,700 Sinti and Roma, for whom a special Camp Section (BIIe) was designated in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and of whom 20,943 were registered with individual prisoner numbers. The vast majority of the deportees, around 90 per cent, did not survive.
Background
Immediately after the beginning of World War II, the RSHA decided to deport not only all Jews but also all Sinti and Roma, estimated at 30,000 people at the time, from the German Reich (including Austria and the Sudetenland) to the General government. On 17 October 1939, the entire police apparatus was informed that the ‘Gypsy question’ would soon be settled ‘on a Reich scale’, for which purpose all Sinti and Roma were to be arrested and registered under threat of internment in concentration camps.2 RSHA, Schnellbrief Tgb. No. RKPA. 149/1939 -g-, concerning the registration of Gypsies, 17 October 1939, in RSHA, Vorbeugende Verbrechensbekämpfung, 156-156R. However, after the first deportation of around 2,500 Sinti and Roma in May 1940, further deportations of this group of victims were postponed while the deportation of the Jewish population from the Reich was being implemented.
The option of deporting all Sinti and Roma remained an active objective in the minds equally of the RSHA and of the regional and local police departments and municipal administrations. As the Immobilisation Decree had created a situation that made the previous expulsion policy impossible, actors at lower levels exerted increasing pressure on higher authorities to carry out further deportations. However, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) declared as early as August 1940 that the ‘evacuation of Gypsies and Gypsy Mischlinge from the territory of the Reich’ would be suspended ‘until the Jewish question’ has been ‘generally resolved’.3 Lublin Archive, Sygn. 203, sheet 10, Office of the Governor General to the district chiefs, district and city chiefs concerning the evacuation of Gypsies from the Reich, 3 August 1940. A little later, in November 1940, he announced the ‘final settlement of the Gypsy question’ in the Reich territory for some time after the war.4 Cf. the correspondence from 1940/41, in: Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, Aktenband 364, Zug. 1975/3 II No. 23. This perspective remained the official position of the Reichsführer-SS until October 1942—despite the deportation of 5,007 Roma from Burgenland to the Litzmannstadt ghetto in November 1941 and the deportation of most of the approximately 2,000 East Prussian Sinti and Roma from February 1942 to Bialystok and from there on to Brest.5 Himmler issued an order in October 1942 to the NSDAP in the Gau Westfalen-Nord to refrain from ‘further resettlements of Gypsies for the duration of the war’; cf. Staatsarchiv Detmold, M 1 I P Nr. 14578, p. 34, Kriminalpolizeistelle Dortmund to Regierungspräsident Minden, 14 October 1942. Nevertheless, just two months later, Himmler ordered the deportation of all Sinti and Roma from the Reich to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Several factors contributed to this change of direction.
Decision in Favour of Auschwitz
By autumn 1942, the deportation of the Jewish population from the Reich was almost complete, which meant that the deportation from the Reich of the second group stigmatised as an ‘alien race’, which had been postponed until then, became more important again. At the beginning of November 1942 at the latest, Himmler instructed the Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsy Nuisance to ‘take a new approach to the treatment of Gypsies in the Reich’.6 Bundesarchiv (BArch) Berlin, R 14/156, memo from a clerk at the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture, 14 November 1942, cited in Luchterhandt, Der Weg nach Birkenau, 239.
At this time, the Ahnenerbe [Ancestral heritage Society] of the SS [Schutzstaffel] also caused a few complications with its own initiative. In September 1942, this office of the SS had been authorised by Himmler to carry out research on ‘racially pure Gypsies’7 In Robert Ritter’s opinion, ‘stammechte’ or ‘racially pure Gypsies’ followed a ‘race law’ that prohibited ‘mixing’ with ‘non-Gypsies’. He therefore did not regard this group as a racial policy ‘problem’. Cf. BArch Berlin, Zsg 142 Appendix 27, quoted from Luchterhandt, Der Weg nach Auschwitz, 235. On the dating of the report, cf. ibid., 236. in order to grant them limited freedom of movement—and to exclude them from the deportations.8 Cf. Zimmermann, 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, contradicts the thesis of both authors that the deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau was triggered by the SS-Ahnenerbe. Opposition arose from the National Socialist authorities responsible for the persecution of Sinti and Roma: the Reich Criminal Police Office (RKPA) and the RHF. Nevertheless, SS-Gruppenführer Arthur Nebe (1894–1945), head of the RKPA, issued a decree on 13 October 1942, which he had developed in collaboration with the Reich Central Office and the RHF. Nine ‘spokespersons’ were appointed for the territory of the Altreich, and their task was to name ‘racially pure Gypsies’.9 Cf. RSHA, V A 2 No. 2260/42, concerning Gypsy chiefs, 13 October 1942, in: RSHA, Vorbeugende Verbrechensbekämpfung, 305–307.
The head of the NSDAP party chancellery, Martin Bormann (1900–1945), also protested against the idea of sparing a particular group. On 3 December 1942, he informed Himmler that this procedure contradicted both previous policy and the views of the population and the NSDAP and would in no way meet with the approval of Adolf Hitler (1889–1945).10 BArch Berlin, NS 19/180, p. 1 f, Martin Bormann to Heinrich Himmler, 3 December 1942. After discussions between the authorities involved and personal meetings between Himmler, Bormann and Hitler on 6 December 1942, an agreement was reached on the next steps.11 Cf. Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid, 300 f. Only a small group of ‘racially pure Gypsies’ (usually referred to by the RHF as ‘authentic [stammechte] Gypsies’) and a few ‘Gypsy Mischlinge’ who were added to the group were to be allowed to live in an as yet undetermined area of German-occupied territory under strict regulations. However, the vast majority of Sinti and Roma were to be deported.
The decision in favour of Auschwitz-Birkenau as the destination of the deportation trains was in all probability already made at this time.12 By contrast, Zimmermann, “Die Entscheidung für ein Zigeunerlager in Auschwitz-Birkenau”, 412, assumed that the decision in favour of Auschwitz-Birkenau was ‘not a long-prepared choice of location, but one made under acute time pressure’. One indication of this is the processing of a transport of 252 Sinti and Roma from Berlin in the spring of 1943. ‘Welle 53’ is handwritten in red pen on a document sent by the Berlin State Police Headquarters to the Berlin-Brandenburg Chief Finance Office regarding the confiscation of the deportees’ assets.13 Arolsen Archives, 1.2.1.1/127212907/ITS Digital Archive, Deportations from the Gestapo area of Berlin, Berlin State Police Headquarters to Berlin-Brandenburg Chief Finance Office, 5 May 1943. This makes the connection to the systematic deportations of the Jewish population clear, as these transports were labelled ‘wave’ [Welle]and numbered consecutively. In addition, the term ‘Osttransporte’ was used for the deportations to Auschwitz as well as to ghettos and extermination camps in order to distinguish them from ‘Alterstransporte’ to the Theresienstadt ghetto. What is relevant in the present context is that from 29 November 1942, all ‘Osttransporte’ from the Reich were directed to Auschwitz-Birkenau.14 Cf. the inventory description in ibid. This meant two things for the deportation of the Sinti and Roma: First, in December 1942 it was clear that the destination of the deportations ordered by Himmler would be Auschwitz-Birkenau. And second, the deportation of the Sinti and Roma was geared into the machinery of the murder of the Jewish population that proceeded under the phrase ‘Final Solution’.
Survey of Those to be Deported
In order to prepare the deportations logistically, an estimate had to be made of the number of Sinti and Roma in the German Reich. The fact that the cooperation of the RHF was crucial in this is already clear from the choice of words ‘Gypsy Mischlinge’, ‘Ròm Gypsies’ and ‘Balkan Gypsies’ in the subject of the express order of 29 January 1943. Robert Ritter (1901-1951), the head of the RHF, presented an overview in around mid-September 1942, according to which 28,607 people had been ‘racially and biologically’ recorded in the territory of the Reich by then. The RHF had drawn up ‘expert reports’ on 18,904 people; in these, 12,360 people were declared to be ‘Gypsy Mischlinge’, 1,585 were categorised as ‘Rom’, 1,079 as ‘full Gypsies’, 1,017 as ‘Lalleri’ and 211 as ‘Balkan Gypsies’. 2,652 were categorised as ‘non-Gypsies’.15 Cf. BArch Berlin, Zsg. 142, Anh. 27, quoted from Luchterhandt, Der Weg nach Auschwitz, 235. As virtually no surveys were carried out by the RHF in the annexed Austria and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, these figures do not reflect the extent of the group of victims targeted in January 1943.
The group of people who were to be spared as ‘racially pure Gypsies’ according to the ideas of the SS Ahnenerbe could only be selected from the approximately 2,000 people whom Ritter labelled ‘Vollzigeuner’ or ‘Lalleri’. In the summer of 1942, Ritter himself estimated the number of this group of people at ‘barely a hundred families’.16 “Das Zigeunersippenarchiv”, in: Westdeutscher Beobachter, 20 June 1942.
An examination of these figures is also important because the discussions within the Nazi authorities about exemptions have led some scholars to claim that around 14,000 Sinti and Roma in the German Reich, including Austria, were categorised as ‘racially pure’ or ‘almost racially pure Gypsies’ and were therefore ‘mostly’ spared persecution.17 Cf. Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust. Vol. III, lemma “Gypsies”, 1630–1634, here 1632, 1634. Guenter Lewy (born 1923) even concluded that ‘large numbers of Gypsies from the Reich, perhaps even a majority’ had escaped deportation.18 Lewy, Nazi Persecution, 225 (cf. 140); same in id., “Himmler and the ‘Racially Pure Gypsies’”, 210. Such conclusions are problematic because they are based on questionable figures and do not take into account actual practice.
Decisions in January 1943
On 15 January 1943, a meeting was held at the Reich Criminal Police Office in Berlin, at which the Reich Central Office was represented by its head, Police Major and SS-Sturmbannführer Heinrich Böhlhoff (1896–1962), as well as Detective Inspector Josef Eichberger (1896–1978), Detective Inspector Wilhelm Supp (1906–after 1966) and Criminal Inspector Albert Wiszinsky (1913–unknown). Robert Ritter and Eva Justin (1901–1966) from the RHF also took part, as did SS-Standartenführer Hans Ehlich (1901–1991) as representative of the Security Service and SS-Obersturmführer Georg Harders (biographical data unknown) for SS Race and Settlement Main Office.19 The minutes of the meeting are reproduced without citation in Hohmann, Robert Ritter und die Erben der Kriminalbiologie, 75–77. For an assessment of the authenticity of the minutes, see Fings, “A ‘Wannsee Conference’”, 175.
The reason for the meeting was Heinrich Himmler’s order of 16 December 1942, which, according to the minutes, stated that ‘according to this order, the majority of these Gypsy persons were to be committed to a concentration camp’ and that ‘only in special cases would they be exempted’, so the question of ‘what to do with the remaining Gypsy persons’ had to be clarified.20 Quoted from Hohmann, Robert Ritter und die Erben der Kriminalbiologie, 75. The leadership of the two most important institutions of National Socialist policy against Sinti and Roma now negotiated this question with two proven strategists and practitioners of ethnic and extermination policy in the Nazi state. Both Ehlich and Harders had experience in the murder of European Jews. Forced sterilisations and resettlements of millions of people were just as much a part of their fields of activity as deploying ‘racial’ selection in order to decide whether individuals should be ‘Germanised’ or exterminated. The institutions they represented had already been involved in planning the complete deportation of all ‘Gypsies’ from the Reich at an early stage.21 Cf. Fings, “A ‘Wannsee Conference’”, 177 f.
The participation of Ehlich and Harders in the meeting therefore suggests that the ‘final settlement of the Gypsy question’ in the Reich, which had been sought for years, was to be decisively advanced on this day. At this point, it was already clear that the vast majority of Sinti and Roma were destined for deportation. As at the two follow-up conferences to the Wannsee Conference, the meeting on 15 January 1943 therefore revolved around the treatment of the numerically small group that was not to be deported as a matter of racial policy. Who should belong to this group was defined more precisely so that appropriate criteria could be included in the express order. It was also decided that all Sinti and Roma except those who had been selected as ’racially pure’ should be forcibly sterilised.
The Express Order of 29 January 1943
The express order (file reference A 2 No. 59/43 g), which was classified as secret and signed by Arthur Nebe, was sent to the heads of the Regional Criminal Police Headquarters [Kriminalpolizeileitstellen, KPLSt], who were in charge of implementing the deportations.22 Hereafter after RSHA, Vorbeugende Verbrechensbekämpfung, 322–327. The letter was also sent to Bormann and Himmler, the Higher SS and Police Leaders in the Reich territory, the inspectors of the Security Police and Security Service, the heads of the Regional Criminal Police Headquarters, the heads of the Gestapo offices, the heads of the SD sections, the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, the commandant’s office of the Auschwitz concentration camp, various departments of the RSHA and the Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei. The circle of addressees did not include all relevant authorities in annexed Austria, as they had already been instructed shortly beforehand.23 See further below.
After the introductory instructions, the express order contains information on exceptional provisions (II), forced sterilisations (III), the imposition of preventive detention (IV), detention documents (V) and miscellaneous (VI). The forms to be completed were enclosed as Annexes 1 to 3.
Firstly, it is noticeable that the deportations were to be carried out quickly: Preparatory measures were to be taken immediately so that the deportations could begin on 1 March and be completed as the ‘main action’ essentially within a month, i.e. as early as the end of March 1943 (VI 2 and 3). The formalities were limited to the bare essentials: Those to be deported were taken into custody regardless of age in accordance with the decree on the ‘Preventive Fight against Crime’ of December 1937, the otherwise customary confirmation of detention—by the RKPA—was dispensed with and the RKPA provided forms in which only the personal details were to be entered.
It is also noticeable that no numerical specifications were made—the RKPA thus signalled to the KPLSt that they had a free hand with regard to the number of deportees. As the deportation was to be carried out ‘regardless of the degree of mixture’ (p. 323a) and the KPLSt were expressly authorised to decide independently in the absence of RHF certifications (IV 8), they also had a largely free hand in selecting the victims. In addition, the exceptional provisions offered considerable room for manoeuvre. It was then primarily the subordinate bodies of the police apparatus that decided who was to be deported or forcibly sterilised.24 Zimmermann, “The Decision in Favour of a Gypsy Camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau”, 409–413.
The deportees were to be transported ‘family by family to the concentration camp (Gypsy camp) Auschwitz’ (p. 323a); children and adolescents who were not found with their parents or other relatives were to be taken to rejoin them before their arrest (IV 1). Unrest and protests, such as had occurred during the deportations in 1938 and the May deportation in 1940, were to be prevented as far as possible.25 Ibid, 413.
Around a third of the express order is taken up with comments on the groups that were initially not to be deported; the coordination processes that had been carried out since autumn 1942 are clearly reflected in this (II 1–10). ‘Racially pure Sinte and Lalleri Gypsies’ and ‘Gypsy Mischlinge’ who would be ‘added’ to them were not to be deported. However, it was explicitly emphasised that a decision would be made on their further treatment. At the time of the deportations, only nine of the 17 regional centres of the KPLSt had received lists of suggested individuals, and they were responsible for examining the lists themselves, meaning that they could also decide the fate of the people on the lists.26 Luchterhandt, The Road to Auschwitz, 242. Sinti and Roma who were proven to be foreign nationals were also not to be deported. The other groups of people were not to be deported, but without exception were to be forcibly sterilised from the age of twelve: Sinti and Roma who were ‘legally married to persons of German blood’, were considered ‘socially adapted’, were ‘exempted from the provisions applicable to Gypsies’ by the RPKA, served in the Wehrmacht or were wounded or decorated as soldiers, or were indispensable as labourers for military economic reasons. The exemption provisions also applied to the spouses and children of persons from these groups. Once again, the local police were given a great deal of discretion, especially as exemptions were only possible for those who were considered neither to have a ‘significant criminal record’ nor to be ‘itinerant’. If Sinti and Roma pursued an itinerant trade, they were generally not considered ‘socially adapted’.
Administrative Acts
The provisions in the express order for the organisation of the deportations show which authorities were involved in their execution beyond the police apparatus—and thus also gained knowledge of the events. All identity papers were taken from the people concerned when they were arrested. Labour books and military passports were returned to the issuing authorities with the note that ‘the person concerned has been committed to a police labour camp for an indefinite period’ (IV 5). The municipal finance offices also received this notification with confiscated ration cards (IV 6). The registry offices in the deportees’ places of residence were only to be informed of their ‘departure’ after their arrival in Auschwitz (VI 9).
It had obviously been clarified in advance with the Deutsche Reichsbahn that there would be no ‘special trains’—that is, trains used exclusively for the deportation of Sinti and Roma. For this reason, transports of ‘no fewer than 50 people’ were to be organised (VI 5). This resulted in complex logistics and many stopovers for the transports, the details of which have still not been reconstructed for the territory of the Reich. This procedure also explains why many survivors report days of gruelling journeys to Auschwitz.27 See for example the reports in Gedenkbuch, vol. 2, 1493–1540.
In the course of the deportations, all the deportees’ possessions were seized and confiscated in favour of the Reich. They were only allowed to take underwear and clothing for their daily needs as well as ‘perishable edibles’, i.e. what could be eaten en route (IV 4). Cash and securities, like all identity documents, were confiscated upon arrest (IV 7).
The confiscation of the assets left behind (such as home furnishings, jewellery and instruments, real estate, shops and work equipment, as well as all personal memorabilia) was ordered as early as 26 January 1943—in other words, even before the express order was issued and long before lists of those intended for deportation had even been drawn up. The department in the Reich Main Security Office responsible for the confiscation of property (Office II A 5) determined on that day that ‘the activities of the Gypsy persons who are to be sent [sic] to a concentration camp on the orders of the Reichsführer-SS of 16 December 1942 have been [sic] hostile to the people and the state or to the Reich.’28 The Reich Minister of the Interior, Pol. S II A 5 No. 28/43 –212–, statement, 26 January 1943, in: RSHA, Vorbeugende Verbrechensbekämpfung, 328r. The statement formally referred to the relevant laws and ordinances on the confiscation of ‘anti-people and anti-state assets’ that had been issued for the Old Reich, Austria, the Sudetenland, the Protectorate and the ‘incorporated eastern territories’.
Further Deportation Orders
Even though the ‘General Ledger’ of Camp Section BIIe in Auschwitz-Birkenau shows that fourteen different nationalities were recorded for the Sinti and Roma deportees,29 Memorial Book, vol. 2, 1469. the deportees were sent from a total of seven countries in accordance with the Auschwitz Decree: from Germany and Austria (since 1942 ‘Alpen- und Donaureichsgaue des Großdeutschen Reiches’) as well as from the German-occupied countries Belgium (including northern France), France (Alsace and Lorraine), the Netherlands, Poland (mainly from the territories incorporated into the Reich) and the Czech Republic. A special case is the deportation from Brest, German-occupied Belarus, in April 1944, which mainly affected East Prussian Sinti.30 Holler, “Deadly Odyssey”.
The decrees31 The documents mentioned below were referred to as decrees at the time and therefore had a different administrative logic to the express order of 29 January 1943. issued for those countries have not survived except where they concern territories that had been incorporated into German Reich territory or annexed by the Reich. The only evidence for the existence of the documents is an addition to the printed collection of decrees of the Reich Main Security Office, where reference is made at the end of the express order of 29 January 1943 to the fact that ‘similar regulations’ were issued.32 RSHA, Vorbeugende Verbrechensbekämpfung, 325. The first reference is to the decrees on the deportations from Austrian Burgenland and East Prussia that had already taken place in 1941 and 1942, which is further evidence that the deportations of Sinti and Roma had been thought of, planned and implemented in a wider context since 1939.
For Austria, research has established that no correspondence has survived from the upper levels of the administration regarding consultations prior to the Auschwitz deportations; this can be partly explained by the fact that the main decisions were made in Berlin.33 Baumgartner et al., Property Confiscation, Restitution and Compensation, 47. The documentation at the lower administrative levels is also rather sparse. It is not clear why the relevant decree for Austria (file reference VA2 No. 64/43g) was issued on 28 January 1943, i.e. one day before the express order for the rest of the Reich. As this letter has not survived, no further conclusions can be drawn about the form of the instructions issued by the RSHA. However, the subject ‘Gypsies from the Alpine and Danube Reich regions’ indicates that no differentiated division of the victim group was made, i.e. ‘racial-biological’ selection criteria were neither considered necessary nor applied. This gave those responsible a great deal of leeway in the selection of victims, which, according to feedback from the district councillors in Styria and an employee of the Salzburg KPLSt, was used generously to deport as many Roma as possible.34 Ibid, 49.
On 29 March 1943, the relevant decrees were issued for the ‘District of Bialystok’ (file reference VA2 No. 206/43g), Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg (VA2 No. 207/43g) and Belgium and the Netherlands (VA2 No. 208/43g). The deportations were extended to other territories and occupied countries once the mass transports known as the ‘main action’ had been completed. On that day, 11,753 Sinti and Roma were already in Camp Section BIIe, with more trains on the way.35 By 31 March 1943, 12,259 Sinti and Roma were registered in Camp Section BIIe; see Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 362 and 364. The reception capacity of the camp was therefore apparently considered sufficient for further admissions.36 This is the assumption of Luchterhandt, Der Weg nach Auschwitz, 250. However, those in charge must have been aware that there were only a few Sinti and Roma living in these areas and countries.
The practice of deportations cannot be deduced from these decrees. The two deportations from Alsace and Lorraine that are known to research had already been carried out before the decree. There was no transport of Sinti and Roma from Luxembourg; instead, a few individuals were seized at different times who were wanted—for example because they had fled the German Reich—and who were deported individually to Auschwitz-Birkenau after being arrested.
The deportations from Belgium and northern France were not carried out until January 1944, those from the Netherlands in May 1944. One possible reason for this could be the lockdown imposed by the RKPA on 15 May 1943 for Camp Section BIIe in view of the rampant diseases caused by the miserable sanitary conditions, which was not formally lifted until 28 January 1944.37 Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Ma-18/a-c, RKPA, telex no. 5184, 15 May 1943, cited in Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid, 337. The decree of the RKPA to lift the camp closure is mentioned in Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz, 517,1/210, p. 206, Kriminalpolizeileitstelle Köln an Kriminalpolizeistelle Koblenz, 19.2.1944. However, there is evidence that around 1,600 Sinti and Roma were registered in Camp Section BIIe during the lockdown.38 This number results from the difference between the prisoner numbers assigned for 14 May and 29 December 1943, from which the number of infants born in the camp during this period has been deducted, cf. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 296–97, 555; Gedenkbuch, vol. 2, 1486–1488 (No. Z-8669–Z-9005). The respective occupation policies in these countries therefore probably also played a role.
Committals until July 1944
The secrecy affecting the express order of 29 January 1943 was lifted on 1 May 1943.39 RSHA, Vorbeugende Verbrechensbekämpfung, 322. By then, 15,031 Sinti and Roma had been registered in Camp Section BIIe; by the end of the year, a further 3,705 would be registered, including the babies born in the camp and excluding the 1,700 unregistered men, women and children who were murdered in the gas chambers immediately upon arrival. The admissions on the basis of the Auschwitz decree were continued with great meticulousness, even if this required numerous individual transports, for which resources had to be used that were scarce in view of the war situation. A systematic search was also carried out for children in orphanages and foster families in order to deport them—such as the children in St Josefspflege in Mulfingen, Germany. On the night of 2 to 3 August 1944, the ‘Gypsy camp’ in the Camp Section BIIe was dissolved and the last 4,300 or so Sinti and Roma still alive were murdered in the gas chambers.
Open Questions
There is no indication that the deportation order to Auschwitz in December 1942 had already decided on the physical death of all those affected. In all probability, the decision to murder the Sinti and Roma deported to Camp Section BIIe was made in April 1944.40 Fings et al., Rassismus, Lager, Völkermord, 313–331, esp. 326–328. Nevertheless, the fact that the question had remained open until then meant that the vast majority of the deportees had long since fallen victim to an extermination process that did not require an order.
Many questions regarding the Auschwitz Decree remain unanswered to this day. Even after the dissolution of Camp Section BIIe, Sinti and Roma were regularly sent to Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Auschwitz-Monowitz. The formal basis on which these deportations were carried out requires closer scrutiny if we are to provide a satisfactory historical account of the scope of the Auschwitz Decree.
The absence of surviving copies of Himmler’s order and the decrees issued in its wake gives an idea of how thoroughly the perpetrators removed the traces of their crimes. It cannot be ruled out that a copy of one of these central sources was nevertheless kept in some archive. Finding it is one of the challenges for future research.
