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German police guard a group of Roma (Gypsies) who have been rounded up for deportation to Poland.

Prisoners of the Camps
Prisoners of the Camps
  • Chart of Prisoner Markings

    A chart of prisoner markings used in German concentration camps. Dachau, Germany, ca. 1938–1942.

    Beginning in 1937–1938, the SS created a system of marking prisoners in concentration camps. Sewn onto uniforms, the color-coded badges identified the reason for an individual’s incarceration, with some variation among camps. The Nazis used this chart illustrating prisoner markings in the Dachau concentration camp.

     

  • German soldier guarding Soviet prisoners of war

    A German soldier guards Soviet prisoners of war at the Uman camp in the Ukraine. Soviet Union, August 14, 1941.

  • Germans guard Soviet prisoners of war

    Germans guard prisoners in the Rovno camp for Soviet prisoners of war. Rovno, Poland, after June 22, 1941.

    Second only to the Jews, Soviet prisoners of war were the largest group of victims of Nazi racial policy.

  • Internment camp for Roma (Gypsies)

    Roll call at an internment camp for Roma (Gypsies). Lackenbach, Austria, 1940–41.

  • Romani (Gypsy) woman's skirt

    This taffeta and cotton skirt dates from the 1920s. It belonged to a Romani (Gypsy) woman who was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and who lived in Germany before the war. She was arrested by the Nazis and interned in the Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, Mauthausen, and Bergen-Belsen camps. She died in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945, shortly before the camp's liberation. Her husband and two of her six children were also killed in the camps.

  • Persecution of Roma (Gypsies), 1939-1945

    Roma (Gypsies) were among the groups singled out on racial grounds for persecution by the Nazi regime. Roma were subjected to internment, deportation, and forced labor, and were sent to killing centers. Einsatzgruppen also killed tens of thousands of Roma in the German-occupied eastern territories. The fate of the Roma closely paralleled that of Jews.

  • Joseph Stanley Wardzala describes the badge Poles had to wear in forced-labor camps in Germany

    Joseph and his family were Roman Catholics. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, roundups of Poles for forced labor in Germany began. Joseph escaped arrest twice but the third time, in 1941, he was deported to a forced-labor camp in Hannover, Germany. For over four years he was forced to work on the construction of concrete air raid shelters. Upon liberation by US forces in 1945, the forced-labor camp was transformed into a displaced persons camp. Joseph stayed there until he got a visa to enter the United States in 1950.

  • Julian Noga describes conditions in Flossenbürg

    Julian's Catholic parents had settled in the United States, but his mother returned to Poland. In 1939, Julian was deported to Austria to do farm labor after he was caught for hiding a rifle. On the farm he met the landowner's daughter, Frieda, his future wife. He was arrested in 1941 because relationships between Austrians and Poles were considered illegal and in 1942 he was deported to the Flossenbürg camp in Germany. During a forced march in 1945, he was liberated by US forces. Julian and Freida married after the war.

  • Karl Gorath

    Karl was born in the small town of Bad Zwishenahn in northern Germany. When he was 2, his family moved to the port of Bremerhaven. His father was a sailor and his mother became a nurse in a local hospital. After his father died, Karl continued to live with his mother. Karl was 20 when he began training as a deacon at his parish church.

    1933-39: Karl was 26 when his jealous lover denounced him and he was arrested at his house under Paragraph 175. Paragraph 175 was a statute of the German criminal code that criminalized sexual relations between men. Though it had been on the books for years, the Nazis broadened its scope. They used it as grounds to arrest gay men, bisexual men, and other men accused of homosexuality. Karl was imprisoned at Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg where the "175ers" had to wear a pink triangle.

    1940-44: Because Karl had some training as a nurse, he was transferred to work at the prisoner hospital at the Wittenberg subcamp. One day, a guard ordered him to decrease the bread ration for the patients who were Polish war prisoners, but Karl refused, telling him that it was inhuman to treat the Poles in this way. As punishment, he was sent to Auschwitz, and this time, rather than being marked as a "175er," he wore the red triangle of a political prisoner. At Auschwitz Karl had a lover who was Polish; his name was Zbigniew.

    Karl was liberated in Auschwitz in 1945. After the war he had difficulty because of his record of having been convicted under paragraph 175.

As the Jews were the main targets of Nazi genocide, the victims of the killing centers were overwhelmingly Jewish. In the hundreds of forced-labor and concentration camps not equipped with gassing facilities, however, other individuals from a broad range of backgrounds could also be found. Prisoners were required to wear color-coded triangles on their jackets so that the guards and officers of the camps could easily identify each person's background and pit the different groups against each other. Political prisoners, such as Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists wore red triangles. Common criminals wore green. Roma (Gypsies) and others the Germans considered "asocial" or "shiftless" wore black triangles. Jehovah's Witnesses wore purple ones. And gay men and men imprisoned for homosexuality had to wear pink triangles. Letters indicated nationality: for example, P stood for "Pole," SU for "Soviet POW," F for "Frenchman."

Captured Soviet soldiers worked as forced laborers, and many of these prisoners of war died because they were executed or badly mistreated by the Germans. In all, over three million died at the hands of the Germans.

Of the approximately 23,000 Roma and Sinti (Gypsies) who were inmates of Auschwitz, about 21,000 died or were killed there. Romani men, women, and children were confined together in a separate camp. On the night of August 2, 1944, a large group of Roma was gassed in the destruction of the "Gypsy family camp." Nearly 3,000 Roma were murdered, including most of the women and children. Some of the men were sent to forced-labor camps in Germany where many died. Altogether, hundreds of thousands of Roma from all over German-occupied Europe were murdered in camps and by mobile killing squads.

Political prisoners, Jehovah's Witnesses, and gay men were sent to concentration camps as punishment. Members of these three groups were not targeted, as were Jews and Roma, for systematic murder. Nevertheless, many died in the camps from starvation, disease, exhaustion, and brutal treatment.

Key Dates

JULY 1, 1937
Martin Niemoeller, church dissident leader, arrested
Martin Niemoeller, one of main opponents of Nazi racial ideology in the Lutheran church and one of the founders of the oppositional "Confessional Church," is arrested. He is sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1938 and spends the next seven years in concentration camps. After the war, Niemoeller's condemnation of bystanders to Nazi policies will become a call to early action. His words: "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out —because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

June 6, 1941
German High Command orders killing of Soviet commissars
Two weeks before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the high command of the German armed forces issues orders to screen Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) for Soviet commissars. The commissars are to be handed over to the mobile killing squads (Einsatzgruppen) for immediate execution. Between June 22, 1941 and May 9, 1945, more than three million Soviet prisoners of war die in German custody. Most die from starvation, disease, and exposure, although tens of thousands are shot as Communists, Jews, or "Asiatics."

August 2–3, 1944
Zigeunerlager (“Gypsy camp”) at Auschwitz is liquidated
Approximately 23,000 Roma (Gypsies) were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, most of whom were placed in a separate section of the camp. Conditions there were exceptionally bad. Almost all the Roma in Auschwitz were gassed, worked to death, or victims of disease or starvation. The Nazis define Roma as racially inferior, and their fate closely parallels that of Jews. On August 2–3, 1944, the "Gypsy camp" at Auschwitz-Birkenau is liquidated. The remaining Romani men, women, and children are killed in the gas chambers. Between 250,000 and 500,000 Roma are killed in the Holocaust.

Last Edited: Aug 17, 2023

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