On 16 May 1944, in the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, something completely extraordinary occurred: Rromani people imprisoned in the so-called “Zigeuenrlager” (“Gypsy Camp”) there rebelled against the SS.
The Nazi Germans regarded Sinti and Rroma (Zigeuner, as they were referred to in official German documents of the period) as enemies of the Third Reich, and therefore sentenced them to isolation and extermination. In the first years after they came to power, the Nazis introduced a range of anti-Gypsy restrictions, including an obligation for them to register and submit to “racial examination”; later, they introduced limitations on freedom of movement. On December 16, 1942, Heinrich Himmler ordered the deportation of all remaining Sinti and Roma to a concentration camp. The implementing regulations for this order, issued by the RSHA on January 29, 1943, specified that Auschwitz was the place of deportation. As a result of this ruling, the Gypsy family camp known as the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy camp), which existed for 17 months, was set up in Auschwitz-Birkenau sector BIIe.
The year 1944 can simply be called the closing phase of the so-called “Final Solution to the Gypsy question” in Nazi-occupied Europe. On 16 May 1944 the first attempt to annihilate all the members of the so-called “Gypsy Camp” at Auschwitz-Birkenau took place and was prevented by an uprising of the prisoners there. The most tragic event did finally take place and the camp and its inhabitants were entirely destroyed at the beginning of August 1944.
The commander of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, ordered at the beginning of 1944 the acceleration of the work already underway in one section of Birkenau, primarily the construction of ramps and the rails for the three-rail branch of the Oświęcim-Katowice railway line, which led to Crematorium I and Crematorium II. All of the preparations were performed in order to receive a transport of Jews from Hungary. Those new prisoners who were labeled capable of work during the selection would need accommodation, so the highest SS command at the main camp decided on 15 May 1944 to kill everyone in the “Gypsy Family Camp”. That would free up space in all of camp B-II-e for more of the Jews from Hungary.
The final action was to have been performed on the evening of 16 May, when the gong was rung announcing a ban on leaving the camp (the so-called Lagersperre) and it was closed. Trucks drove up and parked in front of the gate to the camp; 50 -60 members of a special SS commando unit jumped out of them and called on the prisoners to quickly leave the residential blocks. Inside the blocks, however, a tense silence prevailed and the prisoners refused to come out, barricading the doors and desperately preparing to defend themselves with rocks and work tools. The members of the SS commando unit were startled by this disobedience and their commander decided to postpone the action.
Romani Holocaust survivor Hugo Höllenreiner (born 1933 in Munich), who was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp with his family in 1943, later recalled those moments of resistance as follows: “There were about seven or eight men, definitely, who came to the gate. Dad shouted out – the whole building trembled when he shouted: ‘We’re not coming out! You come in here! We’re waiting here! If you want something, you have to come inside!’ “
The entire event was described in a report by Tadeusz Joachimowski (1908-1979), a former Polish political prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp who was assigned to be a “scribe” (a writer) in the “Gypsy Camp”, as follows: “The last commander of the Gypsy Camp and the current rapportführer [reporting officer] was Bonigut. He was probably from Yugoslavia. He disagreed with the approaches and tactics of the SS. He was a very good person. On 15 May 1944 he came after me and said things looked bad for the Gypsy Camp. An order had been issued to destroy it and had reportedly already received confirmation from the political department through Dr Mengele. The Gypsy Camp was to be destroyed and its crew killed using gas. There were rougly 6 500 Gypsies in the camp at that time. Bonigut entrusted me with informing those Gypsies whom I trusted about what was ahead. He asked me to warn them so they would not go like sheep to the slaughter. He also told me that the signal for the beginning of the action would be the Lagersperre and that the Gypsies should not leave their barracks. Bonigut himself warned several Gypsies of the action. I also (secretly) performed this task. The next day at around 7 PM I heard the gong announcing the Lagersperre. Automobiles drove up in front of the Gypsy Camp and 50 – 60 SS men armed with machine guns got out of them. They immediately surrounded the buildings where the Gypsies lived. Some SS members entered this residential area shouting ‘Los, los‘. There was total calm in the barracks. The Gypsies, armed with handcuffs, knives, shovels and stones, waited to see what would happen. They did not leave the barracks. The SS members were appalled and left themselves. After a brief consultation, they went to find the Blockführerstube [the commander of that block] in order to inform the commander of the action. After some time I heard a whistle. The SS men who were surrounding the barracks left their positions, got back in the automobiles, and drove away. The closure of the camp was lifted. On the next day (17 May 1944), Lagerführer Bonigut came to me and said the Gypsies were rescued, for now…”.
While there was no open clash between the Rromani prisoners and the SS members, this event played a significant role. It decidedly was not the habit in the concentration camps for the prisoners to resist a planned, prepared action en masse right before it was to be undertaken. There is absolutely no doubt that the armed SS commando could have suppressed this act of resistance, but decided not to go into an open confrontation with the prisoners and preferred to achieve their aims in another way. This event is unequivocally an uprising and occupies a significant place in the European History.