A gathering of people awaiting deportation outside the town hall in Jois, Austria, on 21 September 1941. The photograph shows Roma shortly before their transportation. After being registered at the town hall, they were brought by trucks to the Lackenbach detention camp. Between 1940 and 1945, a total of 3,200 to 3,300 men, women and children were forced to live there under primitive and violent conditions. Most were deported to the Litzmannstadt ghetto or to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp and did not survive.
The identities of the men, women and children seen in the photograph are unknown. Nor is it known which of them survived.
The photograph was taken by Anton Ellgass from Agenbühl-Eglofs in the Allgäu region, who was stationed in Jois with his Wehrmacht unit and took part in the arrest. The photograph is part of a series from a photo album comprising three further images. These show a woman and a soldier, then nine people with three soldiers in front of a house, and a group of people being escorted by soldiers. Around 2005, prints of the photographs were handed over to the Vicar Josef Hillinger from Jois. The originals are in the possession of the Ellgass family.
