… The Nazis intended to exterminate the Roma completely by May 1944. On May 15, SS head of the "Gypsy" camp Georg Bonigut orders the prisoners to remain in their barracks. The next day, 50 to 60 SS soldiers surrounded the camp. They tried to drive the prisoners out of their barracks, but failed.
On May 16, 1944, men, women and children from the so-called Gypsy camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, having been warned in advance by members of the resistance in the camp, organized themselves to resist the SS soldiers who came that evening to lead them to the gas chambers. Fearing unnecessary losses, as some of the prisoners were ex-members of the German army and lest the resistance spread to other parts of the camp, the SS soldiers retreated.
But inhumane measures followed such resistance. The prisoners from the "Gypsy" camp were also deprived of that small portion of food that they received daily...
On May 23, the SS troops returned and over 1,500 Roma from Birkenau were taken to Auschwitz from where they were sent to Buchenwald. Two days later, 82 Roma were sent to the Flossenburg camp and 144 Roma women to Ravensbruck. Fewer than 3,000 people remained in the so-called "gypsy family camp", mostly women, children and frail elderly people. Their murder took place on the night between August 2 and 3, 1944, and despite the resistance they gave, 2,897 Roma were loaded onto trucks and taken to gas chamber number V, where they were killed and their bodies burned..."
