The Zigeunerlager (English: Gypsy camps) were internment and forced labour camps established under Nazism by the German government for Romani and Sinti people. From 1935, so-called Gypsies in Germany were forced into municipal camps, which developed into forced labour camps. These camps were a prelude to the Romani Holocaust, and their internees were later transferred to concentration and extermination camps such as the Gypsy family camp in Auschwitz.[1][2][3][4]
Examples of Zigeunerlager
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The Cologne Gypsy Camp (Schwarz-Weiß-Platz) was opened in May 1935, and acted as a model camp for other Zigeunerlager. It had spaces for Sinti and Roma families to bring their own caravans or to live in barracks.[5] Those who received welfare payments were forced to live in the camp if they wished to keep them, but those who occupied private apartments were initially allowed to remain in the city.[4] The site had limited facilities and was surrounded by a 2m high barbed wire fence, with an SS guard and local police monitoring it.[5] By March 1937, up to 500 people, roughly half the local Romani population, lived in the camp.[5]
The Berlin-Marzahn concentration camp started as a municipal Gypsy camp. It was established prior to the opening of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. On 16 July 1936, approximately 600 Gypsies were rounded up in the city and escorted to the suburb of Marzahn, to a site owned by the city which had previously been used to dispose of sewage. Those who did not live in caravans were housed in overcrowded barracks. By September 1938, the residents of the camp numbered 852. Lacking basic sanitation and electricity, disease was rampant, including diphtheria and tuberculosis, and in March 1939 it was measured that 40% of the inmates had scabies.[4]
Other Zigeunerlager were adapted from other camps. The Lety Gypsy Camp was an internment camp for Roma and Sinti people in Bohemia that was formerly a disciplinary labour camp. In August 1942, following the "Decree on Combating the Gypsy Plague" enacted in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia on 10 July 1942, the vast majority of prisoners were emptied from the labour camp and the camp was designated as Zigeunerlager 1.[6] The new internees were also forced to undertake labour within and without the camp; only those under the age of three were not assigned work tasks.[6][7] Conditions were poor, with approximately 327 people of the 1,300 camp population dying from disease and malnutrition.[8] The camp was guarded by former Czech gendarmes.[6] By August 1943, the survivors of the camp were transported to Auschwitz "where almost all were murdered".[8]
References
edit- ↑ "A family interned in a "Gypsy camp."". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
- ↑ "The Genocide of the Roma". The National WWII Museum. 24 September 2024. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
- ↑ "Persecution of Roma (Gypsies) in Prewar Germany, 1933–1939". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
- 1 2 3 Lewy, Guenter (2000). The Nazi persecution of the gypsies. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195125566.
- 1 2 3 Fings, Karola (5 March 2024). "Cologne". Encyclopaedia of the Nazi Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe. Research Centre on Anti-Gypsyism, Heidelberg University. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
- 1 2 3 Beck, Aletta (20 December 2024). "Lety near Písek". Encyclopaedia of the Nazi Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe. Research Centre on Anti-Gypsyism, Heidelberg University. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
- ↑ Lhotka, Petr (19 July 2011). "The gypsy camp at Lety". www.holocaust.cz. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
- 1 2 "Lety u Písku". IHRA. International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Retrieved 21 June 2026.