Gypsy Holocaust?

1. The Holocaust Conference on the Persecution of the Gypsies

Starting on 3 October 1991, at the Auschwitz State Museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau, an international conference was held on the topic of the persecution of the Gypsies during the Second World War. The related papers were published in 1998 in a book entitled Sinti und Roma im KL Auschwitz-Birkenau 1943-44. Vor dem Hintergrund ihrer Verfolgung unter der Naziherrschaft [Sinti and Roma in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp 1943-44. Against the Background of Their Persecution under Nazi Domination].[1]

The volume, a compilation of 26 reports and a specific bibliography of 436 works, is an indispensable instrument for studying the matter.

The initial “specific” estimate of the number of Gypsies allegedly exterminated under the National Socialist regime – 219,700 persons – was adopted in 1972 by Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon in the book The Destiny of Europe’s Gypsies.[2] The “official” figure of 500,000 victims[3] was subsequently imposed. This figure, in fact, appears in the above-mentioned work[4], perhaps with a very wide range of variation—200,000-500,000[5] and even 240,000-500,000-1,000,000.[6]

But the problem is not just a statistical one. The question is whether the National Socialist regime ever displayed a deliberate determination to exterminate the Gypsies and then put such a determination into action.

The position of Holocaust historiography with regard to the matter was summarised by Vlasta Kladivová:

“The National Socialist administration of Germany assigned the same fate to the Sinti and Roma as they did to the Jews. In all countries occupied by Germany, but particularly in Poland, in the western territories of the Soviet Union, in Croatia and Serbia, the majority of Sinti and Roma were killed en masse. In 1939, some of the Sinti in Germany and Austria were partly sent to Dachau concentration camp or the women’s camp at Ravensbrück. From March 1943 onwards, Sinti and Roma from Germany, in Central Europe, as well as from Poland to some extent, along with a small number from Western and southern Europe, were concentrated in the “Zigeunerlager” [Gypsy camp] in the mass-extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau,”

where 1,700 non-registered Gypsies are said to have been gassed in March 1943, and 2,991 of them, after being registered, are said to have been gassed on 2 August 1944.[7] The fulcrum of the entire story is, therefore, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, which, according to Romani Rose, precisely “symbolizes the genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe.”[8] It is, in fact, precisely from the Gypsies at Birkenau that Holocaust historiography has – with a remarkably circular chain of reasoning – deduced the racially motivated “determination to exterminate” on the part of the National Socialist regime with regard to the Gypsies.

We therefore need to examine, first, the genesis and purpose of the deportation of the Gypsies to Birkenau, to ascertain whether the Gypsies were really sent there for purposes of extermination.

2. Origin and Purpose of the Deportation of the Gypsies to Birkenau

The deportation of the Gypsies to Birkenau was effected in consquence of a Himmler order dated 16 December 1942. This is the so-called “Auschwitz-Erlaß” (Auschwitz Decree), preceded, on 13 October 1942, by another decree from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) on the subject of the “Zigeunerhäuptlinge” (Gypsy tribal heads), which “distinguished between Sinti and Lalleri “of pure race” and “good crossbreeds in a Gypsy sense” on the one hand, and the “remaining Gypsy crossbreeds and Roma on the other hand”, as noted by Michael Zimmermann.[9] The first group was to be treated favorably:[10]

“Bormann, head of the Party Chancery, then sent a letter to Himmler dated 3 December 1942 in which he declared himself opposed to any ‘special treatment [Sonderbehandlung] of the so-called Gypsies of pure race’ and, in particular, to granting them permission to ‘roam freely throughout the country.’”

Zimmermann then stated that the sense of the above-mentioned decree was that it was only desired to guarantee Gypsies “a certain freedom of movement for the future […] within a given territory.”[11] In this context, he also mentioned a Himmler order dated 16 September 1942, which entrusted the Ahnenerbe (National Socialist Institute of Genetic Legacies) with conducting a study of the culture of the Roma and Sinti.[12] And Franciszek Piper once again called attention to Rudolf Höss’s statement that Gypsies of pure race, “as descendents of the primordinal Indo-Germanic peoples in Hungary, in the region of Ödenburg (Sopron), should be transferred to the region of Lake Neusiedl. In the future, after the victory, it would be necessary to search for a new territory of settlement for them.”[13]

The “Auschwitz-Erlaß” required the following, among other things:[14]

“By order of the Reichsführer SS of 16 Dec. 1942 – Journal no. I 2652/42 Ad/RF/V – Gypsy crossbreeds, Gypsies who are Roma and belong to Gypsy stock of Balkan origin, having no German blood, should be selected according to certain directives and assigned to a concentration camp in an action lasting a very few weeks. This circle of persons, in that which follows, shall be referred to, in abbreviated form, as “Gypsy persons”. The internment shall occur by family, without consideration for the degree of crossbreeding, in the Gypsy concentration camp (Gypsy Camp) of Auschwitz. […]

The following persons shall be excluded from internment:

1. Sinti and Lalleri Gypsies of pure race;

2. Gypsy crossbreeds who are good crossbreeds in the Gypsy sense and according to the decree of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt of 13 Oct. 1942 – V A 2 no. 2260/42 – and 11 Jan. 43 – V A 2 Nr. 40/43 – shall be integrated with selected Sinti Gypsy families of pure race and Lalleri families considered of pure race;

3. Socially adapted persons who had fixed employment and a fixed primary habitation prior to registration of the Gypsies; […]

6. Gypsy persons who are still engaged in their military service or who, in the current war, have been discharged from military service as invalids or with decorations”.

Sub-paragraphs 1 and 2 of Paragraph 4 moreover order the following:

“The families must be interned in the camp together, insofar as possible, including all economically dependent children. If children are lodged in [institutions for the] education of abandoned children or elsewhere, their reunion with the family, insofar as possible, prior to arrest. In the same way, Gypsy children whose parents are dead [or] interned in a concentration camp or elsewhere must be proceeded with in the same way. To avoid overly lengthy preventive detention, the arrest of Gypsy persons must occur only when rapid transport to the concentration camp is assured.”

These orders categorically disprove the allegation that the Gypsies were the object of racial persecution. Thus, “racial purity” was, for them, even a guarantee of favorable treatment. The measures taken in their regard were not inhumane, and are not consistent with a presumed intention to commit genocide.

3. The Gypsy Camp at Birkenau

This presumed intention is in conflict with the conditions of internment of the Gypsies at Birkenau. In this regard, Franciszek Piper declared:[15]

“The conditions of the Sinti and Roma differ from those of the other camp inmates, particularly in the fact that they may be lodged together with their families and are not all compelled to work physically. Nor were they even subject to selection at the ramp, as occurred with the Jewish transports. Another one of [their] privileges was the possibility of keeping the personal belongings which they brought with them to the camp. They could even use the valuables and sums of money which they smuggled into the camp for clandestine purchases in the camp and to procure foodstuffs for themselves and could also wear their own clothing.”

Helena Kubica stresses that the Gypsies at Auschwitz, at least in theory, were not treated as inmates, but as “internees who were to remain there only until the end of the war, and their conditions were initially better than those of the other inmates”. This was particularly true with regard to food for children.

“The correspondence between the SS-WVHA (Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt), SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl, and Obersturmbannführer Dr. Brandt of the personal staff of the Reichsführer-SS, has been preserved. On 9 April, 1943, Pohl, in this correspondence, among other things, wrote as follows:

‘The administration of Auschwitz Concentration Camp has requested an improvement in food for pregnant Gypsy women and Gypsy infants and newborn children, with reference to the fact that the Reichsführer-SS wants it this way, because, with regard to the Gypsies, he has rather particular intentions. The requests are such that the rations correspond to those of German citizens. I now ask you to verify what the wishes of the Reichsführer-SS [actually] are. We cannot give inmates’ food to the Gypsies, but, supplied with supplements, we can assimilate them with the eastern workers and even give them supplements, even if pregnant eastern workers don’t receive them, and we can even give them our rations for future mothers. Should we assist the children in accordance with the rations for Germans or, even here, follow a middle path in the manner of the regulations for the eastern workers? I request that you inform me of the wish of the Reichsführer-SS so that I may draw up a definitive directive’.

The response to this letter came from Himmler’s chancery on 15 April 1943 and was signed by Dr. Brandt:[16]

‘With regard to your request of 9.4.1943, I inform you that the Reichsführer-SS has decided that both pregnant Gypsies lodged [at Auschwitz] and their children must receive the food due to the eastern workers. For the children, there is a need to find a suitable middle way according to the regulations on eastern workers.’”

Himmler’s directive did not just remain on paper:[17]

“In addition to better food and apart from the possibility of remaining together with their mothers, in the autumn of 1943, at the request of the Gypsy camp physician, Dr. Josef Mengele, a nursery school was created in Barracks 29 and 31 along with a day nursery for children up to the age of 6 at the same time. Barracks 29 was intended for unweaned babies, while Barracks 31 was reserved for babies who already knew how to walk. In the interval from [ages] 8 to 14, several hundred children were attended to by staff consisting of inmates.”

This is confirmed by a letter from Dr. Mengele, Lagerarzt of the Gypsy camp, to the Zentralbauleitung of Auschwitz dated 23 March 1944, which reads:[18]

“For the deteriorated roofs of nursery Blocks 29 and 31 in the Gypsy camp, request is hereby made for 100 rolls of tarpaper (very urgent)” [Für die schadhaften Dächer der Kindergarten-Blöcke 29 und 31 im Zigeunerlager wird um 100 Rollen Dachpappe gebeten (sehr dringend).]”

Helena Kubica then adds:[19]

“based on a Himmler order, the children in the nursery were to receive a special diet: milk, butter, white bread, broth or even marmalade and chocolate.”

Notwithstanding the above, mortality in the Gypsy camp was very high, but from this indubitable fact the Holocaust historiography draws the improper conclusion that the privileges described above – as asserted by Franciszek Piper – were simply a “measure of camouflage”:[20]

“That such privileges were illusory, and intended only to create the impression of provisional internment, is attested to by the fact that, of the nearly 23,000 Sinti and Roma registered in the camp between February 1943 and July 1944, approximately 21,000 died; 7,000 were killed in the gas chambers; the remaining 14,000 died of various diseases and of hunger, or were declared sick and killed by SS doctors.”

According to the documents, of the 20,943 registered Gypsies, 18,249 died.[21] I shall address the alleged gassing victims a bit later on.

As stressed by Helena Kubica, the mortality resulted mainly from the primitive conditions prevailing in the Gypsy camp:

“At the end of March 1943, there were already more than 10,000 Sinti and Roma in the ‘Gypsy camp’. The overcrowding of the barracks and the miserable hygienic-sanitary situation caused by the lack of water and the absence of sewerage facilities engendered a high mortality rate, particularly among children, and caused the spread of epidemics: typhus, pulmonary tuberculosis, malaria, scabies and other typical childhood diseases such as scarlet fever, whooping cough and German measles. Initially, the sick remained in their barracks together with the healthy, thus contributing to the spread of the epidemic.”

The German authorities sought to confront the situation somehow. On 24 April 1943, SS-Brigadeführer Hans Kammler, head of Office Group C (Construction) of the WVHA, sent the Auschwitz Zentralbauleitung a letter bearing as its subject “KL-Auschwitz-Zigeunerlager” [Gypsy camp, Auschwitz Concentration Camp] in which he wrote:[22]

“With the above-mentioned letter, the head of the D group of offices informs you that, due to the excessive pollution of the water in the existing water troughs intended for personal washing, the mortality rate for children under 10 is disproportionally high. To prevent epidemics, instead of the existing washing troughs, it is necessary to install pipes with holes drilled in them from which the necessary water may drip, rather like a shower, without the possibility of pollution from the exterior. You must report to me on the above matters by 5 May 1943.”

Particularly at risk were the children born in the camp, who were numerous; on 21 May 1943, Rudolf Höss, the commandant at Auschwitz, spoke of “approximately 50 births per day of children in the Gypsy camp.”[23]

The camp administration attempted to improve the hygienic-sanitary situation by creating a hospital for the inmates (Häftlingskrankenbau) in Barracks 24, 26, 28 and 30[24], three wash barracks (Waschbaracken)[25] and two latrine barracks (Abortbaracken).[26] A disinfestation barracks was also constructed, with regard to which a report from SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bischoff, head of the Auschwitz Zentralbauleitung, states:[27]

“The transformation of a stable (initially latrine barracks) into a disinfestation barracks [Entlausungsbaracke] has begun. To this end, two hot-air-disinfestation installations [Heißluft-Entwesungsanlagen] have already arrived. The partitions of the individual areas have been walled up. We have already begun coating the wooden walls and roof with Heraklith [a building material]. Excavation for the heating area has been completed and the entire system of pipes inside the barracks has been covered with plastered lath.”

In another report dated 11 September 1943, Bischoff informed the camp administration:[28]

“The disinfestation installation [Entwesungsanlage] in the Gypsy camp was turned over to SS-Unterscharführer Böhm on 8 Sept. 1943, and has been in operation since then.”

A list of the sanitary installations at Auschwitz and Birkenau drawn up by the civilian employee of the Zentralbauleitung Rudolf Jährling on 30 July 1943 describes the sanitary installation in the Gypsy camp as follows:[29]

“1 disinfestation barracks with 4 electrically operated hot-air installations. Product: Umluftapparatebau G.m.b.H., Berlin-Charlottenburg; with shower installation (completion of the plant: 15 Aug. 1943).”

Jean-Claude Pressac, in his first study on Auschwitz, published a photograph which shows these devices and a diagram of their layout.[30]

Having ascertained that the Gypsies were not deported to Birkenau for purposes of extermination, the probative value and historical justification of the exterminationist hypothesis of their killing in gas chambers remains to be established.

4. The Alleged Gassing of Gypsies at Birkenau on 23 March 1943

Under the date of 23 March 1943, Danuta Czech wrote as follows in her Kalendarium of Auschwitz:[31]

“Afterwards, in the evening, in the Gypsy camp of Birkenau, the closure of the camp was ordered, the approximately 1,700 men, women and children housed in Barracks 20 and 22, who had not been registered upon reception at the Gypsy camp, were made to exit the barracks, taken to the gas chambers and killed there. These Gypsies were deported from the region of Białystok and were isolated in Barracks 20 and 22 on suspicion of having typhus. They were not registered at the camp, received no numbers, and only spent a few days in the camp.”

This alleged occurrence is based exclusively upon a single testimony. Since no document exists to support the presumed gassing of these 1,700 Gypsies, or even their arrival at Auschwitz, Danuta Czech’s report has no historical basis.

5. The Alleged Gassing of Gypsies at Birkenau on 25 May 1943

Under the date of 25 May 1943, Danuta Czech writes:[32]

“The SS-Lagerarzt [camp physician], orders a quarantine for the Gypsy camp in Birkenau, during which time 507 Gypsies with numbers Z-7666–Z-8178, and 528 female Gypsies with numbers Z-8331–Z-8864, were taken to the gas chambers. Among them were a few typhus patients, and several hundred persons suspected of typhus […]. The inmate employed in the Schreibstube [record-keeping office] of the hospital in the Gypsy camp was ordered to record the death certificates of the gassed Gypsies as ‘death from natural causes,’ indicating a dozen deaths per day for consistency’s sake.”

In a footnote, Danuta Czech explains:[33]

“The Gypsy Hauptbuch [Register], right next to the names of the gassed men from these transports, bears a cross and dates between 25 May and 2 June. The [same] Gypsy Hauptbuch, right next to the names of the women from the above-mentioned transports, bears the notation ‘SB’, for Sonderbehandlung [“special treatment,” presumed code language for homicidal gassing or a cross and dates between 26 May and 11 June 1943.”

First, I will say that the alleged selection is based upon mere testimonies. The “Hauptbuch der Zigeunerinnen” [main Gypsy women’s register], from 25 May to 11 June 1943 records 528 deaths, broken down as follows:[34]

I will first of all point out that the initials “SB”, of 528 deaths, are only attributed to 100 women and to none of the 349 male Gypsy deaths,[35] i.e., to 100 deaths out of 877. If all these inmates were subjected to Sonderbehandlung – alleged “homicidal gassing” – why were only 100 recorded as such with the initials “SB”?

Another oddity of these registrations is the breakdown of the deaths. For six days, 50 Gypsy women were recorded in a round number, while one day shows 60; but for 4 June, the registrations show 139. Not only [that], but for a good eight days (from 28 May to 2 June, in addition to 5 and 6 June) no deaths were registered at all. If it was necessary to “disguise” these deaths, why were they not distributed in an irregular manner every day, from 26 May to 11 June?

On the other hand, if the practice of the alleged Sonderbehandlung—“homicidal gassing” – was legal, since it was ordered by the SS-WVHA, what need was there to “disguise” these deaths at all? The logic of “disguising” them is only justified in a context of illegality.

There is another oddity: why are all the numbers of the dead inmates consecutive? Before answering this question, it is necessary to know what happened in the Zigeunerlager during that period. Henryk Świebocki, in an article based on information received from the clandestine resistance movement with regard to the Zigeunerlager, notes:[36]

“Other clandestine messages from 1943 make repeated mention of the typhus epidemic in the Zigeunerlager and the [related] high mortality rate: “Petechial fever raging in the Zigeunerlager. Mortality up to 30 Gypsies per day. Gypsies often flee as a result [?]” [May 1943]. “Very serious epidemic of petechial fever among the Gypsies – high mortality –, but the camp is closed to prevent all contact” [June 1943]. “The Zigeunerlager, which contains 13,000 persons, is distinguished by the high mortality rate – particularly from abdominal and petechial typhus” [14 June 1943]. “Petechial fever raging in the Zigeunerlager” [20 June 1943].”

Starting in mid-May, the entire camp was disinfested in the disinfestation facility of Camp BIb (the disinfestation gas chamber of BW 5a), as SS-Untersturmführer Johann Schwarzhuber wrote to the camp command on 22 July.[37] But the sanitary situation was not yet under control, because, at the beginning of July, two SS men doing service in the Gypsy camp and in Camp BIb also contracted petechial fever.[38]

The majority of the deceased Gypsies belonged to a transport which had reached the camp from Białystok on 12 May 1943: 468 Gypsy men had been registered under numbers Z-7666–Z-8133 and 503 Gypsy women under numbers Z-8331–Z-8833.[39] The epidemic was confined to precisely these inmates, according to Tadeusz Szymański, Danuta Szymańska and Tadeusz Śniecko:[40]

“The first cases of petechial fever occurred among the Gypsies who had been interned in May 1943 from the voivodeship of Białystok and from Austria. Verified and suspected cases of petechial fever, approximately 900 persons, were treated at the hospital.”

Therefore, both the men and the women who had been in close contact had mutually infected each other, with fatal results.

During this period, particularly because of the epidemic of petechial fever, the mortality rate in the Zigeunerlager was very high: but in such case, what need was there for a “therapeutic” extermination of the typhus victims or suspected victims? What need was there to murder inmates who were dying en masse because of the epidemic?

From the end of February until December 1943, the mortality of the inmates registered in the Hauptbuch was 7,359 inmates, to whom must be added at least half of the 1,329 deaths for whom the dates are illegible,[41] a total of at least 8,000, thus the average mortality was approximately 27 deaths per day. The mortality of [528 + 507 =] 1,035 inmates in 14 days (recordings) represents an average of approximately 74 deaths per day, a rate perfectly compatible with an epidemic of petechial fever. In the men’s camp at Birkenau, in the midst of the petechial fever epidemic, 2,824 inmates died in ten days, from 10 to 19 August 1942, an average of 282 per day, out of an average labor force of approximately 23,000 inmates [= 1.23% per day].[42] Since, as we have already seen above, the average labor force of the Zigeunerlager was 13,000 inmates, a mortality of [13,000 x 1.23/100 =] approximately 160 inmates per day, in the midst of the epidemic is consistent with the tragic reality of Birkenau.

In conclusion, there is nothing to show that the dead Gypsies were gassed, and there is nothing to indicate that their deaths were not the result of natural causes, although it is improbable that a round number of 50 inmates should have died per day. The recordings of the deaths were performed in this way [more] for reasons of official policy – that is, for purposes of a practical scheduling of the work of drawing up the death certificates – than for purposes of “concealment”.

As for the initials “S.B.”, I have already noted the peculiarity of the use of these initials; see above. I would like to add that the words “Gest.[orben] S.B.” is also rather strange: if “S.B.” was synonymous with homicidal gassing, what was the purpose of specifying that the respective inmates were “gestorben” [had died]? This rather accords with the explanation of someone interested in establishing a correlation between “S.B.” and death, that is, of creating “proof” of this alleged equivalence. The “Hauptbuch des Zigeunerlager” was produced at Birkenau on 13 January 1949,[43] during the Stalin era. Could it be that some overzealous employee of the Auschwitz Museum wished to add a datum (the initials “S.B.”) which would – from his point of view – have “completed” the register? If we examine page 542 of the women’s register carefully[44] – the only one containing the initials “S.B.” that has been published – it is obvious that these initials were written in darker, higher-contrast, ink than the annotations “Gest.”, followed by the date, and, in contrast to these annotations, there are no smears: the strokes of the nib are clear and sharp. Furthermore, the initials “S.B.” are written in a clearly different hand from that in which the annotations are written, as made obvious by the initials by the name of the Gypsy woman Sofia Brzesziński (no. 8377 of the register) on the same page. This more than justifies the suspicion that the initials “S.B.” were added later, after the rediscovery of the registers. Since the registers, consisting of three volumes (one containing the men’s register, and the other two containing the women’s registers), were somewhat dilapidated, a comprehensive manipulation was not possible, because, on other pages, the new ink right next to the faded ink would have been too obvious to fool anyone.

Such a suspicion has nothing improbable about it. It is well known that the authorities of the Auschwitz Museum indulged in even bolder manipulations, in particular, through the “reconstruction” of the alleged gas chamber in Crematorium I of the Stammlager, which was fobbed off as original and authentic until 1992.[45]

6. The Alleged Gassing of Gypsies at Birkenau on 2 August 1944

In dealing with this matter, I shall refer to an article of mine already published a few years ago, appending my response to the only critique offered by exterminationists.[46]

6.1. Danuta Czech’s Historical Reconstruction

According to the official historiography, 2,897 Gypsies in the so-called “Zigeuner-Familienlager” (Gypsy family camp) in Camp BIIe were gassed at Birkenau on 2 August 1944.

The most specific reconstruction of the alleged event was supplied by Danuta Czech in her Auschwitz “Kalendarium.”[47 ]

Her argumentative structure is as follows: On 30 July 1944, the population of Camp BIIe amounted to 1,518 inmates.[48] On 1 August, the population of the camp increased to 2,815 inmates. Danuta Czech comments:

“This is probably the total number of all men and all women.”[49]

On 2 August, the population of the camp increased again to 2,885 inmates, but the total number of Gypsies (including those in Camps BIIa, BIId e BIIf) was 2,898 persons, “probably men and women”, comments Danuta Czech.[50]

Her historical reconstruction continues as follows:[51]

“In the afternoon, an empty train was prepared at the Birkenau railway ramp. 1,408 Gypsy men and women selected from Camp BIIe and from Blocks 10 and 11 of the Main Camp were removed from Auschwitz Concentration Camp [Birkenau]. These were to remain alive, and were therefore transferred to other concentration camps. The departing inmates said goodbye through the fence to those remaining in Camp BIIe. The train departed the ramp at Birkenau towards 7 P.M. In the train were 918 men, including 105 young people aged 9 to 14, and 490 women. The destination of the train was Buchenwald Concentration Camp. On 3 – 4 August, 1,408 Gypsy men and women were still registered on the labor deployment list of Auschwitz II [Birkenau], with the notation that they were being transferred to another camp. These were deleted from the camp labor force only after receipt of confirmation of their arrival at Buchenwald. […]

“After the serial-number roll call at KL Auschwitz II, the camp was ordered isolated, and the Blöcke in the Gypsy family camp were ordered closed. Camp BIIe and other housing barracks still containing Gypsies were surrounded by armed SS soldiers. Trucks entered the camps, which then transported 2,897 defenseless men, women and children to the gas chambers in the crematorium.”

6.2. The documents

Danuta Czech’s reconstruction, as regards its numerical aspects, is documentarily based on unimpeachable facts, taken from the series of daily reports referred to as “Arbeitseinsatz” (labor deployment) in the men’s camp of Auschwitz II (Birkenau).

On 30 July 1944, The “Zigeunerlagerstärke” (population of the Gypsy camp) was 1,518 persons.[52] On 1 August (the report for 31 July is missing), the population amounted to 2,815 persons;[53] on 2 August, it amounted to 2,885 persons.[54] On 3 August, the heading “Zigeunerlagerstärke” no longer appears, and 1,408 Gypsies were listed under the heading “Überstellung Zig.” (Gypsy transfer) with reference to Camp BIId.[55]

Apparently, then, (2,885 – 1,408 =) 1,477 Gypsies disappeared from the camp population on 3 August: where did they go?

Before answering this question, we need to ask another, even more important question: is Danuta Czech’s interpretation of these documents correct?

6.3. The Interpretation of the Documents

Between the end of July and the beginning of August 1944, the men’s camp at Auschwitz II was composed of the following sectors: BIa, BIIa, BIId, BIIf, BIIg, listed as such in the Arbeitseinsatz (labor deployment) reports.

Camp BIIe housed both Gypsy men and women, and for this reason was also referred to as the Zigeuner-Familienlager. Nevertheless, as is logical, the men formed part of the men’s camp labor force, while the women formed part of the women’s camp labor force, so that they never appear in the series of Arbeitseinsatz reports for Camp BIIe, before 3 August. The male inmates of this camp appear under a separate heading entitled Zigeunerlagerstärke (Gypsy camp labor force).

As we have seen, on 1 August 1944, the Gypsy camp labor force increased from 1,518 to 2,815 inmates. Who were these (2,815 – 1,518 =) 1,297 inmates, and where did they come from? Danuta Czech supposes that they were Gypsy women: but why were women included in the labor force of the men’s camp? This hypothesis is not very sensible, and is, in fact, quite unjustified.

As already noted by Gerald Reitlinger, the Gypsy women from the women’s sector of Camp BIIe were transported to Ravensbrück on 1 August 1944.[56] The source cited by him in fact confirms that the transport in question left Auschwitz on 1 August and reached Ravensbrück on 3 August. Reitlinger explains:[57]

“The transport from Auschwitz Concentration Camp, having arrived on 3.8.44, consisted exclusively of Gypsy women from Birkenau, women who were still alive.”

Danuta Czech’s assertion that 918 Gypsy men and 490 Gypsy women were transferred to Buchenwald is incorrect, since 918 Gypsies reached their destination, i.e., Buchenwald, but not a single Gypsy woman did. In fact, the only documentary source cited by Czech in this context is a letter from the garrison physician of the Waffen-SS at Weimar (SS–Standortarzt der Waffen-SS Weimar) dated 5 August 1944 indicating the subject of “Zigeunertransport v. 3.8.44 von K.L. Auschwitz” (Gypsy transport of 3.8.1944 from KL Auschwitz). It mentions 918 Gypsies; of these, 105 belonged to the 1930-35 age group (9-14 years old), and 2 were over 65 years of age.[58] En passant, it is impossible to understand how these children and old people escaped being “gassed”! Even the Verzeichnis der Neuzugänge ab 1. Juli 1944 (List of new arrivals of 1 July 1944) of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, dated 3 August, mentions only one transport of 918 “Zigeuner vom K.L. Auschwitz” (Gypsies from Auschwitz Concentration Camp).[59] Finally, the report of the Dutch Red Cross confirms the arrival at Buchenwald of one single Gypsy transport on 3 August 1944, assigned registration numbers 74084-74998, corresponding to 915 inmates; once again, this proves that these inmates were Gypsies from the Zigeunerlager or Gypsy camp at Birkenau, and that the Gypsy women were transferred to Ravensbrück.[60] And since only this one transport of 918 Gypsies arrived at Buchenwald, it is obvious that another transport of 490 Gypsies was directed to another camp.

There nevertheless remains the question that the manpower of the Gypsy camp, from 30 July to 1 August, increased from 1,518 to 2,815 inmates. Having established that the additional 1,297 inmates could not be Gypsies, who were they?

The documents permit us to provide an answer to this question. On 30 July 1944, a transport of 1,298 Jews reached Birkenau from Radom, who were registered under numbers A-18647-A-19944.[61] These however, in the Arbeitseinsatz report of 1 August, do not appear, neither under the heading “Zugang” (arrivals), which is not even listed, nor under the heading “Zugangsquarantäne” (new arrivals quarantined), which shows only 968 registered inmates in Camp BIIa, who constitute part of the 1,318 inmates listed in the report for 30 July. These 1,298 inmates do not appear either in the report for 2 August, which lists 965 registered inmates in Zugangsquarantäne for Camp BIIa, the same as the day before, and 2 inmates – 2 newborns / “Zugang (Neugebor.)” – as new arrivals.

Camp BIIe also appears in the report for 3 August for the first time, showing 1,415 registered inmates under the heading “Zugangsquarantäne Häftl.” (inmate new arrivals quarantined) and 547 under the heading “Zugang”. This heading also includes 16 inmates in Camp BIa and 1,797 in Camp BIIa.

The “Quarantäne-Liste” (quarantine list)[62] compiled by the inmate Otto Wolken allows us to reconstruct the composition of the inmates admitted into the Zugangsquarantäne in Camp BIIa.

The 1,797 inmates registered on 3 August were made up as follows:

• 1,614 from Blyżyn (31 July), registration numbers: B-110-B-2902;
• 129 from Kowno (1 August), registration numbers: B-2774-B-2902;
• 54 from a mixed transport (31 July), registration numbers: 190656-190707[63] and A-19945-A-19946.

The 547 inmates listed under “Zugang” in Camp BIIe were Jews from Radom, registered on 2 August under numbers B-2903-B-3449.[64]

The Quarantäne-Liste therefore confirms that the above-mentioned 1,298 Jews did not enter the BIIa quarantine camp: therefore, if it is certain that they were registered at Birkenau, but do not appear under the heading “Zugang”, nor under “Zugangsquarantäne”, where did they go?

The conclusion is inescapable: they were received by Camp BIIe, the manpower of which thereby increased to (1,518 + 1,298 =) 2,816 inmates. The one-unit discrepancy results from the fact that, for 1 July, the number of Gypsies is unknown, and certainly dropped from 1,518 to 1,517.

Therefore, the 2,815 inmates of the Gypsy camp on 1 August 1944 consisted of 1,517 Gypsies and 1,298 Jews from Radom.

On 2 August, the manpower of Camp BIIe was 2,885 inmates. In the other camps, there were a total of 13 Gypsies: 1 in BIIa, 5 in BIId and 7 in BIIf. On 3 August, there was only one remaining Gypsy in Camp BIIf.

On 3 August, the heading “Zigeunerlagerstärke” disappears from the series of Arbeitseinsatz reports, while Camp BIIe appears for the first time, listing 547 inmates under “Zugang”, whom we have already identified, and 1,415 inmates under “Zugangsquarantäne”, who came neither from outside nor from the BIIa quarantine camp. It is therefore clear that they were in Camp BIIe already, and formed part of the 2,885 inmates mentioned above. On 3 August, there were also 1,408 Gypsies under “Überstellung” (transfer) and [that] these also formed part of these inmates. Finally, another 72 inmates in Camp BIIe are listed under the heading “Beschäftigte” (employed).

Adding the figures up, on 3 August, there must have been (1,415 + 1,408 + 72 =) 2,895 inmates in in Camp BIIe, only 1,408 of them on paper.[65] On 2 August, there were 2,885 inmates in that camp, but 12 of the 13 Gypsies in the other camps were recalled to Camp BIIe, therefore, the manpower of this camp must have been 2,897 inmates on 3 August. Two inmates in Camp BIIe were probably transferred or died; therefore, there were actually 2,895 inmates in Camp BIIe on 3 August 1944.

The variations in Gypsy manpower between 30 July and 3 August 1944 can therefore be explained in a perfectly straightforward manner.

The story of the gassing of the Gypsy camp is therefore without any historical basis.

6.4. Objections and Responses

Sergey Romanov has published an article on the “Holocaust Controversies” Internet site[66] about the fate of the Gypsies interned at Birkenau, in which he contests both Danuta Czech’s interpretation, as summarized above, and mine. As for mine, in particular, he accuses me of failing to pay sufficient attention to the fact that, according to Danuta Czech, as we have seen above, “the 1,408 Gypsies and Gypsy women” transferred from Birkenau were “selected from Camp BIIe and from Blocks 10 and 11 of the Main Camp”. He criticizes both [of us] for allegedly ignoring a series of “Stärkemeldung” (manpower reports) from Camp “B.II/e (Frauen)”, that is, from the women’s section of the Gypsy camp, prepared between 16 and 31 July 1944. These documents were previously unknown to everyone, including Danuta Czech. The report of 31 July 1944[67] indicates the manpower as 3,422 Gypsy women, therefore, the increase in Gypsy camp manpower from 1,518 to 2,815 persons between 30 July and 1 August 1944 cannot be explained by the registration of Gypsy women and men together, as claimed by Danuta Czech.

Romanov accepts my explanation in this regard, commenting that, “the argument seems reasonable in this regard, and it’s a shame that traditional researchers didn’t offer it earlier” – that is, that the explanation was proposed by a revisionist researcher rather than an exterminationist. Subtracting the 1,298 Jews from Radom from the presumed number of gassing victims – 2,897 Gypsies, “who, according to Danuta Czech’s methodology, could have been gassed” and assuming that the 1,408 Gypsies transferred from Birkenau came from Auschwitz, he concludes that “the gassed Gypsies could have been (1,599 + 3,422) = 5,021.”

Therefore – claims Romanov – “both Mattogno and Czech commit a fatal error. They were only interested in the male labor employment lists. How was Czech, based on the population of the male camp, able to conclude that ‘2,897 defenseless men, women and children were gassed,’ and how was Mattogno, based on the male population, able to conclude that no Gypsies were gassed at all?”

I shall begin by answering the last question first.

Danuta Czech claimed to have documentarily proven the gassing of 2,897 Gypsy men and women based on the Arbeitseinsatz reports (labor deployment reports) from the male camp at Birkenau; for my part, I have limited myself to showing that her interpretation is documentarily unjustified. The discovery of the Stärkemeldung reports from the female sector of the camp only confirms my refutation.

On the other hand, while it is true that I perforce based my findings on the manpower of the male Gypsy camp, I did not neglect the women’s camp at all. In fact, I mentioned the Gypsy women’s transport which departed Birkenau on 1 August 1944 and reached Ravensbrück concentration camp on 3 August. The number of camp inmates is unknown, and it is not even known whether there were other Gypsy transports to other camps. But there is nothing to indicate that all 3,422 of the Gypsy women in the female section of BIIe Camp were not transported to other camps on 31 July 1944. Upon what documentary basis can one assert that all or any of them were gassed?

Finally, let us examine the question of the transfer of 1,408 Gypsies from Camp BIIe and Blocks 10 and 11 of Auschwitz Camp. Romanov draws attention to the entry dated 23 May 1944 of the Kalendarium, which states:[68]

“Another 1,500 Gypsies – men, women and children – were housed in Blocks 10 and 11 of the Main Camp. These people, after the failed SS attempt to liquidate the Gypsies, were selected from the BIIe Gypsy family camp at Birkenau. The ones selected were to be transferred to other concentration camps within the Reich.”

Since, therefore, Danuta Czech considers the 1,408 transferred Gypsies as forming part of these 1,500 sent to Auschwitz, according to her logic, they should not be subtracted from the 2,898 Gypsies presumed gassed, as I had done in the first draft of this article.[69] Apart from this rather unimportant point, this alleged fact in no way influences the structure of my argument.

I use the words “alleged fact” quite deliberately, because the transfer of these 1,500 Gypsies from Birkenau to Auschwitz is not attested to by any document; it is based on a single testimony. Here, by contrast, it would be appropriate to refer to the Hauptbuch des Zigeunerlagers (Gypsy camp main register), containing notations of variations (deaths, transfers, etc.) of all Gypsies, both men and women, registered at Birkenau. While the registers related to men and women are damaged in part, an analysis of this content permits one to form a precise idea of the presumed transfer to Auschwitz in question. The following table reproduces the data related to Gypsy transfers to the Auschwitz Main Camp:

The presumed transfer of approximately 1,500 Gypsies to Auschwitz on 23 May 1944 is not mentioned in the Hauptbuch des Zigeunerlagers. As for the presumed gassing on 2 August 1944, this register contains no indication of it, since the notations contained in it cease, strangely, with the month of July.

7. The Presumed Extermination of the Gypsies in the German-Occupied Territories and in German-Allied Territories

7.1. The Generalgouvernement

Let us turn to the Auschwitz conference on the persecution of the Gypsies. Piotr Kaszyca provides a long list of 167 “execution locations” in the Generalgouvernement[70] in which 3,600 Gypsies are said to have been killed,[71] a list subsequently updated to 188 locations and 4,200 victims,[72] which would nevertheless only represent a small percentage of the 30,000 Gypsies deported to the Generalgouvernement from Reich territory in 1940.[73] Prior to 1 September 1939, there were 30,000, 50,000 or 70,000 Gypsies living in Poland.[74] The presumed executions mentioned above are not, in reality, supported by documents or material reports. It is all based on testimonies.

7.2. Hungary

András T. Hegedüs declared:[75]

“The war in Hungary ended on 4 April 1945, and with it, the terror of the swastika. The losses of the Roma people amounted, according to various estimations, to 5-10% of their population. But since the Roma, because of their particular lifestyle, particularly their indefatigable wanderings, could not be taken into consideration in the pre-war census, there are, as a result, no reliable data as to their numbers; these percentages may mean either a few thousand or a few tens of thousands of victims.”

But he supplies no figure as to the Gypsy population, so that his statement, in addition to being based on quite an arbitrary percentage of victims, is logically nonsensical as well. Susanne Heim asserts that there were 275,000 Gypsies in Hungary in 1942,[76] so that, if we adopt the above-mentioned arbitrary percentages, the victims would have amounted to 13,750-27,500.

7.3. Slovakia

Ctibor Nečas reports that 176 mass graves containing 3,723 bodies, among them 720 women and 211 children, were found in Slovakian territory after the surrender. But he states: “There is no way of determining the number of Roma among these victims.”[77] More than 100,000 Sinti and Roma lived in Czechoslovakia.[78]

7.4. Serbia

Serbia is one of the very few countries for which there is any documentary evidence of killings of Gypsies. A small proportion of these – together a larger number of Jews – were in fact shot in reprisal for the activities of Tito partisans. The hostages were theoretically all women, since “it was contrary to the attitude (Auffassung) of German soldiers and officials to take female hostages”, unless they were the wives or relatives of partisans fighting in the mountains.”[79] In a note dated 25 October 1941, Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote:[81]

“What remains of approximately 20,000 Jews (women, children and old people),[80] as well as approximately 1,500 Gypsy women, whose husbands were also shot, must be concentrated in the so-called Gypsy quarter of Belgrade as a ghetto. Provisions for the winter could be provided in some manner.”

The three mass shootings in October 1941[82] killed approximately 5,200 Jews, 450 Gypsies and 805 Jews and Gypsies[83]—a maximum total of 1,000-1,200 Gypsies at most.[84] But the same Germans estimated the Gypsy population of Serbia in 1943 at 115,000,[85] which means that the killing victims amounted to approximately 1% of the total [Gypsy] population. The degree to which the National Socialist authorities intended to carry out a Holocaust of the Gypsies is shown by the fact that 282 Gypsies (women and children) were released from internment in the presumed extermination camp of Semlin, where 5,000-6,000,[86] or 7,500, Jewish women and children, are said to have been killed in gas vans; yet the Gypsies had been interned in this same camp.[87]

7.5. Soviet Union

The killing of Gypsies is documented for the Soviet Union as well. The indictment in the Einsatzgruppen trial mentions the documents in which executions of Gypsies are recorded. Let us briefly summarize the related data in the following table:[88]

Report on Events in the Soviet Union no. 150 dated 2 January 1942 (Document NO-2834) also ascribes the killing of 824 Gypsies in the Crimea in the period 16 November-15 December 1941 to Einsatzgruppe D.[89]

Nor were these shootings carried out for racial motives. A report on partisan activities in the rear of Army Group North for the period from 1-16 June 1942 states: “In the zone north of Novorzhev on 7 June 1942, after investigations, 128 Gypsies were shot for assisting the partisans.”[90] And a directive from the 281st Security Division at Feldkommandantur 822 dated 24 March 1943 recalled: “According to the order of the General Command dated 2 November 1941-VII 1045/43, resident Gypsies who have already lived two years at their place of residence and are not politically and criminally suspect must be left where they are, while migratory Gypsies must be entrusted to the nearest Einsatzkommando of the Security Service.”[91]

The total number of Gypsies shot therefore amounts to (1,711 + 824 + 128 =) 2,663.

7.6. Other Countries and Recap

Leo Lucassen published a table of Gypsy victims[92] which I have supplemented with the data set forth above:

These figures, for the most part, have no historical-documentary basis in fact, and are often treated acritically in the book by Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon.

8. Mortality and Presumed Murder of Gypsies in the Concentration and Alleged Extermination Camps

8.1. Concentration Camps

The following table summarizes the data supplied by Gudrun Schwarz in her report entitled “Sinti und Roma in den Nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern. Ein allgemeiner Überblick” (“Sinti and Roma in the National Socialist concentration camps. General overview“):[93]

The Gypsies deported to the concentration camps, considering the transfers from one camp to another, do not exceed more than 35,000 in number. We do not know how many of these died, apart from the (18,249 – 5,632 =) 12,617 from Auschwitz, minus the purported gassing victims.

8.2 Alleged Extermination Camps

Let us now go on to the alleged extermination camps:

The presumed gassing of 5,000 Gypsies at Chełmno is not only documentarily unfounded, but also erroneous and numerically contradictory. It rests exclusively on the – totally unreliable [96] – testimony of a self-proclaimed escapee from the camp known only by his nickname: “Szlamek”.

In this regard, Anton Galiński writes:[97]

“In the absence of documents, it is impossible to establish certain data on the definitive liquidation of the Gypsies in the Łódź camp [that is, the Łódź Gypsy camp]. The climax of their deportation to the extermination camp at Chełmno on the Ner fell in the period between 5 and 12 January 1942. This can be deduced from the invoices issued by the administration of the ghetto for the rental of trucks for the needs of the Gypsy camp. This is also confirmed by the Jew ‘Szlamek,’ an escapee from the Chełmno extermination center.”

Even more explicitly, Janusz Gulczyński admits:[99]

“This information on the subject of the Gypsies is found in the reports from escapees from the camp, for example: AŻIH [Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw], ring [Ringelblum Archive] I, no. 412 (Szlamek Report). This report was published in: R. Sakowska […98].”

The figure of 5,000 Gypsies is moreover erroneous since, of the 5,007 Gypsies deported to the Lodz ghetto, 213 died in the month of November 1941, 400 in the month of December and 29 in the days between 1 and 2 January 1942, so that no more than 4,365 Gypsies could have been deported to Chełmno. Finally, the figure in question is also contradictory, since “Szlamek” only mentions the killing of Gypsies, in the days between 8 and 9 January 1942, in which there are said to have been a total of 15 or 16 Gaswagen transports of 60 persons each, a total of 960 persons,[100] so that he did not account for the fates of the remaining 3,405 Gypsies.

In conclusion, the “verified” victims of the presumed extermination camps are said to have amounted to approximately 12,000 people. Even if we add the 3,863 Gypsies who were shot, the approximate total of 118,500 presumed murder victims and the approximately 11,250 deaths at Auschwitz, the total number of victims would amount to approximately 145,600, well off the propagandistic official figure of 500,000 and still further from reality, since in this group the number of murder victims – 130,500 Gypsies – is documentarily unfounded and purely conjectural. The number of documentarily verified dead and murdered Gypsies is in fact (12,617 + 1,200 + 2,663 =) 16,480, excluding the deaths among the approximately (35,000 – 20,943 =) 14,047 internees in the concentration camps other than Auschwitz, which may amount to a few thousand more at most. In practical terms, 4% of the mythical figure of 500,000.

The presumed Holocaust of the Gypsies is, therefore, without historical foundation.

Appendix

Documents

Notes:

Translated by Carlos W. Porter