Andrea Joy Campbell: “during World War II, some 23,000 Roma were sent to Auschwitz, mostly from Germany, Austria, and the occupied Czech…”

“during World War II, some 23,000 Roma were sent to Auschwitz, mostly from Germany, Austria, and the occupied Czech lands. Sixty Years ago, on the night of August 2 and 3, the order was given to liquidate the ``Gypsy Camp'' at Auschwitz. Over the course of that night, 2,898 men, women, and children were put to death in the gas chambers. In all, an estimated 18,000 Roma died at Auschwitz- Birkenau. During the intervening years, Aug. 2 and 3 have become days to remember the Porrajmos, the Romani word that means ``the Devouring,'' and to mourn the Romani losses of the Holocaust. As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has suggested, Roma are ``understudied victims'' of the Nazis. What we don't know about the Romani experiences during the war is far greater than what is known. But we do know that the fate of the Roma varied from country to county, and depended on many factors. We know that, in addition to the atrocities in Auschwitz, thousands of Roma were gassed at Chelmno. We know that an estimated 90 percent of Croatia's Romani population--tens of thousands of people--were murdered. We know that approximately 25,000 Roma were deported by the Romanian regime to Transnistria in 1942, where some 19,000 of them perished there in unspeakable conditions. We know that in many places, such as Hungary, Roma were simply executed at the village edge and dumped into mass graves.”