Admission of Roma to the Lackenbach camp, Austria, 23 November 1940. The Lackenbach detention camp in Burgenland, established on a farmstead formerly used for sheep farming, existed until the end of the war and was the largest camp for Sinti and Roma in the German Reich. Miserable accommodation, hunger, forced labour and violence characterised daily life in the camp. Most of the 3,200 to 3,300 people deported there were sent to ghettos and extermination camps and did not survive. In the camp itself, 249 people died as a result of the appalling conditions.
The photograph comes from the collection of amateur historian and collector Leopold Banny (1928–2016), who was unable to provide any further details regarding its origin. The men, women and children standing under guard in front of the camp entrance are thought to have come from places in the vicinity of Lackenbach, as they were admitted on the day the camp opened. The policeman visible at the front right has not been identified by name.
