Roma in the Łódź ghetto

In November 1941 around 5,000 Roma mainly from the Austrian federal province of Burgenland were deported to Łódź (Litzmannstadt), where a separate ‘gypsy camp’ was set up within the ‘Jewish ghetto’. Within a matter of weeks more than 700 people fell victim to the atrocious living conditions and the outbreak of a typhus epidemic. In December 1941 and January 1942 the remaining inmates were all taken to the Chełmno extermination camp and asphyxiated in gas vans.

01 | Exterior view of the ‘gypsy’ camp at the Łódź ghetto. There is a handwritten note on the back of the photograph: ‘Double fence and water ditch around the gypsy camp.’ Yad Vashem
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02 | Exterior view of the buildings that made up the ‘gypsy camp’ at the Łódź ghetto. The ground-floor windows were boarded up to isolate the ‘gypsy camp’ completely from the rest of the ghetto. Frankfurt am Main Jewish Museum; photo: Walter Genewein
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03 | Photograph of the evacuated ‘gypsy camp’ at the Łódź ghetto once the inmates had been transported to the Chełmno extermination camp. Yad Vashem
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04 | First page of a telegram from the ‘Reich Main Security Office’ dated 9 October 1941 ‘Re: Transfer of 20,000 Jews and 5,000 gypsies to the Litzmannstadt ghetto’ Yad Vashem  
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05 | ‘Overview of the transfer’ from Litzmannstadt dated 13 November 1941 ‘Overview of the transfer (gypsies)’ Documentation Centre Archives of the Austrian Resistance, Vienna  
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 06 | From the chronicle of the Łódź ghetto
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07 | Eyewitness account of Szlojme Fajner, who managed to escape from Chełmno and was murdered at the Bełżec extermination camp in 1942
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