Flossenbürg concentration camp was established in May 1938 on the outskirts of a village in the Upper Palatinate, Germany, near the border with Czechoslovakia. Flossenbürg was one of the concentration camps set up by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) to use inmate labour for the production of building materials. The local granite quarries were the main reason for the choice of the site.
Between 1938 and 1945, the Schutzstaffel (SS) held over 100,000 inmates in the main camp and in over 80 satellite camps that were established by the end of the war. Around 23,000 of these were Jews, who were mainly transferred to the camp complex from mid-1944. The majority of all inmates came from Eastern Europe, primarily from Poland and the Soviet Union.
In the main camp, the inmates had to work in a granite quarry belonging to the SS-owned Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke, and later also in the production of armaments for the Messerschmitt company. At least 30,000 of the prisoners were murdered or died as a result of the inhumane conditions.1Cf. Benz and Distel, eds, Flossenbürg.
Sinti and Roma in Flossenbürg—Numbers
Research into the Sinti and Roma in the Flossenbürg camp complex is still in its infancy in many respects, particularly with regard to the male inmates and those who were held in Flossenbürg before 1944. Even more serious is the lack of research on the non-German-speaking Sinti and Roma.
As of September 2023, 681 prisoners had been identified by name as Sinti and Roma in the ‘Memorial Archives’ database of the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial. This forms the basis for this article and all of the following figures. It can be assumed that the figure is too low, as not enough systematic research has been done and new findings are constantly being added through the cross-referencing and networking of various databases.2Cf. Ibel, Vernetztes Forschen.
Only one publication, from 2001, deals with the Sinti and Roma in Flossenbürg, more specifically with the female prisoners in the Zwodau and Wolkenburg satellite camps. This study by Norbert Aas was commissioned by the State Association of German Sinti and Roma in Bavaria and is always cited when figures are given. Aas estimates that there were up to 1,000 Sinti and Roma in the Flossenbürg camp complex, but he admits that the data is uncertain and sometimes contradictory. Accordingly, these figures should be regarded as rough estimates.3Cf. Aas, Sinti and Roma, 27.
Sinti and Roma in the Flossenbürg Camp Complex
The majority of Sinti and Roma identified in the ‘Memorial Archives’ were women; we currently assume that there were 512 of them. Most of these inmates were held in the satellite camps Zwodau4Cf. Schmolling, “Zwodau”. (211 out of a total of 1,355 inmates5Number of prisoners registered in the respective satellite camp since 1 September 1944 according to the database query in the ‘Memorial Archives’ (as of September 2023), excluding prisoners who passed individual satellite camps in 1945 as part of death marches, as in the case of Zwodau, for example.), Wolkenburg6Cf. Fritz, “Wolkenburg”. (150 out of 401) and Graslitz7Cf. Schmolling, “Graslitz”. (136 out of 1,383). From 1944 onwards, they were mainly used for forced labour in satellite camps in Saxony and in what is now the north-western Czech Republic, which were initially under the control of Ravensbrück concentration camp.
As of 1 September 1944, when the SS restructured the administration of the women’s satellite camps in Saxony and Bohemia, these camps were organisationally part of Flossenbürg. However, little changed for the women exploited there for forced labour, and many survivors remembered the name Ravensbrück better than Flossenbürg.
Norbert Aas also assumes that there were around 80 prisoners at the Dresden-Universelle satellite camp8Cf. Fritz, “Dresden (Universelle)”; Aas, Sinti and Roma, 139. and just under 40 at Neurohlau9Cf. Kanak, “Neurohlau”; Aas, Sinti and Roma, 36.. In addition to German-speaking Sinti, around 200 Hungarian Roma are said to have been held in Zwodau from 20 January 1945. However, there is hardly any research on the Hungarians. Czesława Malinowska, an inmate in Zwodau, was questioned by Polish authorities in 1968 about her persecution experience and stated that the Hungarian Roma were only there for a short time before they were taken to a nearby forest and shot.10Cf. Aas, Sinti and Roma, 136.
More than half of the Sinti and Roma in the Flossenbürg satellite camps were born between 1923 and 1929, and many had previously been interned in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Some of the young Sinti who had been forced to work in the typing pool or the prisoners’ kitchen in camp section BIIe in Auschwitz-Birkenau were transferred by the SS via Ravensbrück to Graslitz in western Bohemia. In this satellite camp, they had to carry out precision engineering work for the Hakenfelde GmbH (LGW) aviation equipment factory, a subsidiary of the Siemens Group. Production was carried out in a disused textile factory. The female inmates were housed on an upper floor above the factory building.11Cf. Schmolling, “Graslitz”; Guttenberger, Personal conversations with Sarah Grandke 2015–2023.
Elisabeth Schneck, married name Guttenberger (1926–2024), was deported with her family from Munich to Auschwitz-Birkenau in March 1943. About six months later, the SS deployed her in the typing pool of camp section BIIe. Starting in the summer of 1944, she was transported to Graslitz via a series of detention sites.12Cf. Nerdinger, ed., Die Verfolgung der Sinti und Roma. There, a German foreman helped her to move from factory work to an office job, a move which she said saved her life.
At least four female inmates died in Graslitz, including the Czech Romni Anna Angerová (1920–1944). Their bodies were buried in the Old Cemetery in Sokolov (Falkenau/Eger). Like the majority of the at least 55 Czechoslovak Sinti or Roma identified to date in the entire Flossenbürg camp complex, 24-year-old Anna Angerová had been held in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to which she had been deported from a detention camp in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, before being transferred to Graslitz.13Research by Peter Liszt, Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial, 2016–2018. Shortly before the Graslitz satellite camp was liberated, all the prisoners were driven on a death march, from which some, including some Sinti, were able to escape.14Elisabeth Guttenberger was able to escape with a cousin and friend. Cf. Nerdinger, Die Verfolgung der Sinti und Roma, 224–25; Guttenberger, Personal conversations with Sarah Grandke 2015–2023; testimony of Elisabeth Guttenberger, née Schneck, on 2 February 1965 in the Auschwitz trial, in: Protokoll, Kommissarische Vernehmung vom 2.2.1965 (Pforzheim), 4 Ks 2/63, Bd. 108, Anlage 2 zum Protokoll vom 11.2.1965, from: Fritz Bauer Institute Archive 4Ks/2/63; State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, ed., The Auschwitz Trial, 29.124–29.139; Guttenberger, “The Gypsy Camp”.
In Wolkenburg near Chemnitz, the inmates had to work in the production facility of the Berlin-based electrical company Opta Radio. A disused weaving mill was used as the production site. The 399 women were housed on the top floor of a factory building. At least seven inmates died in Wolkenburg.15Cf. Fritz, “Wolkenburg,” 268.
A letter from Luise Mai (1929–unknown) and Rosa Georges (1927–unknown), dated 8 October 1944 and addressed to the Catholic children’s home St. Josefspflege in Mulfingen, has survived from Wolkenburg. The two girls, aged 15 and 13, asked for food to be sent to them and described how 33 Sinti children from the home had been deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on 9 May 1944 together and then separated from each other. Only four of the children survived Auschwitz and were transferred to Buchenwald and Ravensbrück. Luise Mai and Rosa Georges were later liberated in Dachau.
At the beginning of September 1944, two Sinti women managed to escape the Wolkenburg satellite camp: 19-year-old Marie Fröhlich (1925–unknown) and 20-year-old Rosa Frost, married name Mettbach (1924–2004). However, the Chemnitz criminal police picked them up again in November and both were returned to Wolkenburg, where they were punished with beatings and confinement in standing cells.
In mid-April 1945, the SS drove 372 women, including Rosa Mettbach and Marie Fröhlich, on a death march from Wolkenburg to Dachau concentration camp, some 400 kilometres away. Of these, only 116 reached their destination.16Cf. ibid., 269. After Rosa Mettbach was liberated from the death march, she returned to Munich, where her husband and her child, to whom she had secretly given birth in Munich in 1944, were living. Rosa Mettbach reported on her experiences in two video interviews in the early 1990s.17Cf. interviews with Rosa Mettbach 1994: https://video.fernuni-hagen.de/Play/7025; and 1993: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn87608 [Accessed: 31 July 2025].
Among the survivors of the death march was Anna Kreuz, married name Mettbach (1926–2015), who was particularly active in bearing witness from the 1990s onwards.18Cf. Mettbach, “Wer wird die nächste sein?”; Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial, Anna Mettbach folder. Like many others, both had to fight for decades for recognition and compensation.
The Flossenbürg Main Camp as a Stopover for Sinti and Roma
As far as is currently known, the main camp, which was a men-only camp, was primarily a stopover for most Sinti and Roma. Individual transports of Sinti and Roma to the main camp are documented for the first few years. The first inmates came from Dachau and were used from May 1938 to construct the camp.
On 1 October 1938, the SS had at least three Roma originally from Austria transported from Dachau to Flossenbürg. Heinrich Horvath (1909–unknown), Wenzel Horvath (1894–1941) and Alois Sarkösi (1915–1940) were noted in the camp registry as ‘BV’ (‘professional criminals’). Research by the memorial centre into Austrian prisoners revealed that these three men were Austrian Roma from Burgenland. A detailed search for personal testimonies, applications for compensation or the like is still pending.19Research by Peter Liszt, Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial, 2016–2018. See also Wien Museum, ed., Romane Thana, 72. However, as far as we know to date, these three were the first Roma to be deported to the Flossenbürg concentration camp.
In Norbert Aas’s account, the first inmate registered as a ‘Gypsy’ in Flossenbürg was the Sinto Paul Dombrowski (also Dombrowsky)20Aas, Sinti and Roma, 40; Arolsen Archives, correspondence file T/D 900793. (1915–1985) from East Prussia. Dombrowski worked as a trader and lived in Königsberg before his arrest, most recently in Contiener Weg, where the local criminal investigation department had set up a detention camp. In 1938, he was deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then on to Flossenbürg. He himself stated that he was in Flossenbürg from April 1939.21Arolsen Archives, correspondence file T/D 900793. The card on which the prisoners’ belongings were listed on arrival (effects card) is dated April 1940 for Paul Dombrowski. In 2008, Paul Dombrowski’s military conscription card was found, and the Arolsen Archives wanted to return it to his descendants. At the time, however, no relatives of Mr Dombrowski could be traced.
By April 1942, the Racial Hygiene Research Unit had compiled 888 ‘racial evaluations’ in Bavaria.22Cf. Grandke, “Die Verfolgung der Sinti und Roma”. The majority of those registered lived in the area of the Augsburg, Nuremberg-Fürth, Regensburg and Würzburg criminal investigation departments, including some families in the Weiden region in the immediate vicinity of the Flossenbürg concentration camp. However, as far as is known, none of them were sent there directly.23Munich State Archive, Pol. Dir. 7033, sheet 5/2, copy, Munich Criminal Investigation Department to Reich Security Main Office, 7 April 1942, copy in the private possession of Ludwig Eiber, Munich.
If the criminal investigation department had Bavarian Sinti and Roma sent to a concentration camp before March 1943; the destination for women was Ravensbrück, for men mainly Dachau. One exception was the Munich bandmaster Rudolf Reinhardt (1899–autumn 1942). The father of six was arrested by the Munich police in July 1942 and sent to Flossenbürg. Just a few weeks later, he was transported to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, where he probably died in October 1942.24Cf. Nerdinger, Die Verfolgung der Sinti und Roma, 148, 186; Memorial token for the Reinhardt family in Munich, 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydk0TF42jIg [accessed: 31/07/2025]; Arolsen Archives, correspondence files T/D 130134, T/D 1060768 and T/D 130132; Arolsen Archives, 1.1.8.3/10983055/ITS Digital Archive, Individual Documents Rudolf Reinhardt, Flossenbürg; State Office of Finance, State Compensation Office Munich, Compensation File EG 43657-BEG 38127.
Jakob Bamberger (1913–1989), who originally came from East Prussia and later lived in Frankfurt am Main, was sent to Flossenbürg for illegally crossing the border, presumably because it was close to the place where he was arrested. The professional boxer, who had also been a member of the German Olympic team in 1936 and was runner-up in the flyweight division, tried to flee from the intensifying racist persecution to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in 1941, but was arrested on his way to Prague. After just over a year in the main camp, the SS had him transferred to Dachau in February 1943. In Flossenbürg, he was registered as ‘ASO’ (‘asocial’) in Dachau as ‘AZR’ (‘Arbeitszwang Reich’). In Dachau, doctors used Jakob Bamberger for medical experiments.25KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg, Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg, 66; Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial, Handmappe Jakob Bamberger; Arolsen Archives, 1.1.5.3/5470838/ITS Digital Archive, Häftlingspersonalkarte Jakob Bamberger, Buchenwald; Eiber, “Ich wußte, es wird schlimm,” 38; Bamberger, “… und mir wollten sie den Hungerstreik verbieten”; Marco Theuer, Holocaust – die Schicksale verfolgter KZ-Boxer, http://suite101.de/article/holocaust-die-schicksale-verfolgter-kzboxer-a65732 [accessed: 01/11/2023].
The verifiable number of Sinti and Roma in the Flossenbürg concentration camp complex increased from the summer of 1944 with the closure of camp section BIIe in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The only large, continuous transport known to date arrived in Flossenbürg in this context. 82 Sinti and Roma left Auschwitz on 22 May 1944 and were registered in Flossenbürg five days later, on 27 May 1944. The majority of these men had to perform forced labour in various satellite camps from January 1945 at the latest.
To the best of our knowledge, there was no use in Flossenbürg of triangles on the prisoners’ clothing to distinguish Sinti and Roma (such as the brown ones briefly used in Dachau in the summer of 1939). Many of the Sinti and Roma inmates were not explicitly registered in the ‘Gypsy’ category until the summer of 1944. When this changed, most of those identified as ‘Gypsies’ had to wear the black triangle of ‘asocial’ inmates, and the suffix ‘Zig’ for ‘Gypsy’ was entered on their effects cards.
Sinti and Roma in the Satellite Camps of the Flossenbürg Camp Complex
According to the latest information from the ‘Memorial Archives’, the total number of male Sinti and Roma inmates was 169. Many of them were only in the main camp for a short time—if at all—and were transferred from there to satellite camps. As far as we know, Sinti and Roma were mainly held in the satellite camps in Johanngeorgenstadt (22), Hersbruck (22), Leitmeritz (18) and Flöha (eleven).
The men in Johanngeorgenstadt, including the 22 Sinti and Roma, were sent there via Buchenwald in August 1944. The inmates had to build aircraft parts in a two-shift operation. Workplaces and housing were surrounded by an electric fence. Erla Maschinenwerk GmbH Leipzig used a disused furniture factory as the site.
One of the Sinti prisoners there was the then 16-year-old Walter Hartmann (1928–probably before May 1945), who had been deported with his relatives from Hamburg to Auschwitz-Birkenau in March 1943 and from there to Buchenwald in April 1944. Via a satellite camp in Leipzig, he arrived in Johanngeorgenstadt in August 1944, where he was registered until 17 February 1945. After that, he disappears from the record. It is not known whether he was driven onto the death march or perished on the march.26The Hamburg district court declared him dead after the end of the war. Hamburg State Archive, 351-11-48701, Wiedergutmachungsakte Walter Hartmann (born 11 January 1928) as well as collected information on this in the non-public project database of denk.mal Hannoversche Bahnhof Hamburg. Cf. Grandke, “Prenzlau – Hamburg – Auschwitz-Birkenau”.
With around 9,000 prisoners, the Hersbruck satellite camp was the second largest satellite camp in the Flossenbürg camp complex. A tunnel system for the production of BMW aircraft engines was to be built there. The conditions in the camp meant that around half of the inmates did not survive. In addition to the inadequate infrastructure in the camp, health and safety measures were minimal and there were repeated accidents.27Schmidt, “Happurg and Hersbruck,” 132.
The 82 Sinti and Roma who arrived in Hersbruck were mainly those who had been transported from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Flossenbürg on 27 May 1944. The transport from Birkenau to Flossenbürg main camp took five days. At first, the Sinti and Roma were housed mainly in Blocks 6 and 19. Some of them were later transferred to various satellite camps as forced labour.
The oldest prisoner was Eugen Lang (1897–1945), a Sinto born in Tübingen. His fiancée was considered an ‘Aryan’, and the authorities refused the couple a civil marriage on the basis of the ‘Nuremberg Laws’, but she survived the war to search for traces of Eugen Lang. It has only been known since 2013 that although he survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Flossenbürg and Hersbruck camps, he was transferred to Dachau concentration camp shortly before the end of the war and died there a few days before liberation. His fiancée probably never found out. In addition to a waistcoat, a pair of shoes, two shirts and a pair of pants, Eugen Lang’s effects card in Flossenbürg also lists wedding rings, which he apparently carried with him during the deportation.28Cf. Nerdinger, Die Verfolgung der Sinti und Roma, 189; Grandke, “Die Verfolgung der Sinti und Roma”; Schmidt, “Happurg und Hersbruck”.
The Sinto Hugo Franz (1913–2001) was imprisoned in the Leitmeritz satellite camp. Franz had studied the violin and worked as a musician. He arrived in Leitmeritz via various detention sites, having previously been imprisoned in the Groß-Rosen concentration camp. In Leitmeritz, he started work in the underground armaments plant, but was quickly given a better job. In the final days of the war, Hugo Franz was due to be deployed in the Wehrmacht, but he was able to evade this. He survived and later founded and headed the regional association of German Sinti and Roma in North Rhine-Westphalia.29Cf. Hugo Franz, in: Lexicon of persecuted musicians of the Nazi era, https://www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de/object/lexm_lexmperson_00006737 [accessed: 31/07/2025].
Commemoration at the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial Site
US troops liberated the main camp on 23 April 1945 and found around 1,000 prisoners, most of whom were in very poor health. The first memorials were erected beginning in 1946 by an international memorial committee, which was mainly the initiative of Polish-Catholic displaced persons. These first memorials were primarily Christian and national in their design and symbolism.30Cf. Grandke, “Moving memories”; on the post-history of the Flossenbürg concentration camp in general, see Skriebeleit, Erinnerungsort Flossenbürg. Sinti and Roma were not included as a victim group, nor (research has found) did they take part in the early remembrance initiatives.
The 1950s in particular witnessed the remodelling and expansion of the first memorial site in Flossenbürg, which was laid out as a park and cemetery. The actual concentration camp site with its historical buildings continued to be dismantled and built over. It was not until the mid-1990s that a memorial centre in the current sense, with staff and archives, was established.
The first comprehensive permanent exhibition on the Flossenbürg camp complex was opened in 2007 and a second on the post-history of the concentration camp in 2010. Today, as of 2023, the memorial receives around 100,000 visitors a year.
In 2013, the Bavarian State Association of German Sinti and Roma initiated the Bavarian Memorials Foundation to erect a monument to the murdered Sinti and Roma at the Flossenbürg memorial site. The result of the memorial competition was presented to the public and unveiled on 17 April 2016 as part of the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp. The black basalt memorial was designed by the sculptor Alfred Kainz (born 1960). Its shape refers to the shape of the wing of a ‘Messerschmitt Bf 109’ aeroplane and to the black triangle that Sinti and Roma had to wear in the concentration camp. The inscription on the memorial reads: ‘In memory of the Sinti and Roma who fell victim to the Nazi genocide in the Flossenbürg concentration camp, its satellite camps and on the death marches.’
There is also a memorial to the persecuted and deported Hersbruck Sinti families at the Hersbruck satellite camp, which was inaugurated in 2020.
Among the material on display at the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial are biographies of Sinti and Roma, including that of Anna Mettbach. Various biographies are also included in folders in the exhibition ‘Flossenbürg Concentration Camp 1938–1945’. In the exhibition ‘What remains’, which deals with the period after 1945, the fight for compensation is shown using the example of Kynophas Schmidt (1899–1967). The way in which the genocide of Sinti and Roma was dealt with after liberation is explored as a cross-cutting theme and illustrated using specific biographies.31Cf. Peritore, “Geteilte Verantwortung?,” 228; the biography of Aloisie Istvanova (1893–1971) in KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg and Jan Švimberský, ed., “Heute ein Heiliger, morgen ein Schweinhund!,” 24.
Gaps and Research Perspectives
The authors are currently hardly aware of any written memoirs of male Flossenbürg survivors. Two video interviews with Hans Seeger (1931–unknown) and Johann Mongo Stojka (1929–2014), who came to Flossenbürg on a death march towards the end of the war, have not yet been analysed.32Seeger was interviewed by the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial in 2018 and Stojka in 1998 by the USC Shoah Foundation: https://memorial-archives.international/media_collections/show/645a5127f3511b23848b456f and https://memorial-archives.international/media_collections/show/5aa2597a589cef782c8b4567 [accessed: 31/07/2025].
In the case of female Sinti and Roma, the records are better, not least because more Sinti and Roma women and girls were interned in the Flossenbürg camp complex from the summer of 1944. Systematic research into this group of victims, taking in personal testimonies, compensation files and other sources has yet to be carried out. At the same time, it should be noted that the state of research on German-speaking Sinti and Roma is significantly more favourable than that on those from Czechoslovakia, where there is only some limited work on individuals. Very little is known about Sinti and Roma from Western Europe or Hungary.
