Roma Resistance at Auschwitz: Defiance in the Face of Death
Roma, Sinti & Black Lives: The Untold Stories of WWII
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14m
On 26 February 1943, the first transport of Roma prisoners arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, marking the beginning of one of the most overlooked genocides of World War II. More than 23,000 Roma and Sinti men, women, and children were confined in the so-called “Gypsy Family Camp”, where they endured starvation, disease, and brutal medical experiments under Josef Mengele. Despite unimaginable suffering, on 16 May 1944, they rose in unarmed defiance against the SS, preventing their immediate extermination. Their courage, however, could not stop the inevitable — on the night of 2 August 1944, nearly 3,000 Roma were murdered in the gas chambers.
This story remembers both their persecution and their resistance — a tragedy long silenced, now finally recognized as part of the Holocaust.
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