Roma
The Nazis regarded Roma as a “hostile element” allegedly possessing an inborn tendency to crime and asocial behavior. From 1933 they became, along with Jews, the objects of persecution on racist grounds, first through registration, then a ban on certain occupations and on contracting mixed marriages, then compulsory labor and, in the end, confinement in concentration camps.
At the outbreak of World War II it was decided to resettle German Roma to occupied Poland. German police authorities began arresting and executing Roma in the occupied territory. This was also true behind the lines on the Eastern Front where Roma were murdered on a mass scale alongside Jews by so-called Einsatzkommandos.
After the issuing by Heinrich Himmler of an order that they should be sent to Auschwitz, Roma were deported there from 1943 mainly from Germany and also from Austria, Bohemia and Poland. They were placed in the so‑called Zigeunerlager (Gypsy camp) in Birkenau. A total of about 23,000 Roma were deported by the Germans to Auschwitz, including 2,000 Roma murdered without being entered into the camp's records. 21,000 were registered in the camp, of which 19,000 died of starvation and sickness, or were murdered in the gas chambers upon liquidation of the “Gypsy camp”.