Editing Auschwitz concentration camp (section)

===Family camps===
====Gypsy family camp{{anchor|Gypsy camp}}{{anchor|Family camp}}{{anchor|Gypsy family camp}}====
{{main|Gypsy family camp (Auschwitz)|Romani genocide}}
[[File:Romani Kids ww2.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|[[Romani people|Romani]] children, [[Mulfingen]], Germany, 1943; the children were studied by [[Eva Justin]] and later sent to Auschwitz.<ref>{{cite web |title=Romani children in an orphanage in Germany |url=https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1000174 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=2 February 2019 |archive-date=1 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230201215416/https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1000174 |url-status=live }}</ref>]]
A separate camp for the [[Romani people|Roma]], the ''Zigeunerfamilienlager'' ("Gypsy family camp"), was set up in the BIIe sector of Auschwitz II-Birkenau in February 1943. For unknown reasons, they were not subject to selection and families were allowed to stay together. The first transport of [[Romani people in Germany|German Roma]] arrived on 26 February that year. There had been a small number of Romani inmates before that; two Czech Romani prisoners, Ignatz and Frank Denhel, tried to escape in December 1942, the latter successfully, and a Polish Romani woman, Stefania Ciuron, arrived on 12 February 1943 and escaped in April.{{sfn|Bauer|1998|pp=447–448}} [[Josef Mengele]], [[the Holocaust]]'s most infamous physician, worked in the gypsy family camp from 30 May 1943 when he began his work in Auschwitz.<ref name="Kubica 1998 319"/>

The Auschwitz registry (''Hauptbücher'') shows that 20,946 Roma were registered prisoners,{{sfn|Bauer|1998|p=448}} and another 3,000 are thought to have entered unregistered.{{sfn|Piper|2000b|p=55, note 145}} On 22 March 1943, one transport of 1,700 [[Romani people in Poland|Polish Sinti and Roma]] was gassed on arrival because of illness, as was a second group of 1,035 on 25 May 1943.{{sfn|Bauer|1998|p=448}} The SS tried to liquidate the camp on 16 May 1944, but the Roma fought them, armed with knives and iron pipes, and the SS retreated. Shortly after this, the SS removed nearly 2,908 from the family camp to work, and on 2 August 1944 gassed the other 2,897. Ten thousand remain unaccounted for.{{sfn|Bauer|1998|pp=449–450}}

====Theresienstadt family camp{{anchor|Theresienstadt family camp}}====
{{main|Theresienstadt family camp}}
The SS deported around 18,000 Jews to Auschwitz from the [[Theresienstadt ghetto]] in [[Terezin]], [[Czechoslovakia]],{{sfn|Strzelecka|Setkiewicz|2000|p=96}} beginning on 8 September 1943 with a transport of 2,293 male and 2,713 female prisoners.{{sfn|Czech|2000|p=185}} Placed in sector BIIb as a "family camp", they were allowed to keep their belongings, wear their own clothes, and write letters to family; they did not have their hair shaved and were not subjected to selection.{{sfn|Strzelecka|Setkiewicz|2000|p=96}} Correspondence between [[Adolf Eichmann]]'s office and the [[International Committee of the Red Cross|International Red Cross]] suggests that the Germans set up the camp to cast doubt on reports, in time for a planned Red Cross visit to Auschwitz, that mass murder was taking place there.{{sfn|Keren|1998|p=429}} The women and girls were placed in odd-numbered barracks and the men and boys in even-numbered. An infirmary was set up in barracks 30 and 32, and barracks 31 became a school and kindergarten.{{sfn|Strzelecka|Setkiewicz|2000|p=96}} The somewhat better living conditions were nevertheless inadequate; 1,000 members of the family camp were dead within six months.{{sfn|Keren|1998|p=428}} Two other groups of 2,491 and 2,473 Jews arrived from Theresienstadt in the family camp on 16 and 20 December 1943.{{sfn|Czech|2000|pp=190–191}}

On 8 March 1944, 3,791 of the prisoners (men, women and children) were sent to the gas chambers; the men were taken to crematorium III and the women later to crematorium II.{{sfn|Czech|2000|p=194}} Some of the groups were reported to have sung [[Hatikvah]] and the Czech national anthem on the way.{{sfn|Keren|1998|p=439}} Before they were murdered, they had been asked to write postcards to relatives, postdated to 25–27 March. Several twins were held back for medical experiments.{{sfn|Strzelecka|Setkiewicz|2000|p=97}} The [[Czechoslovak government-in-exile]] initiated diplomatic manoeuvers to save the remaining Czech Jews after its representative in Bern received the [[Vrba-Wetzler report]], written by two escaped prisoners, [[Rudolf Vrba]] and [[Alfred Wetzler]], which warned that the remaining family-camp inmates would be gassed soon.{{sfn|Fleming|2014|pp=231–232}} The BBC also became aware of the report; its German service broadcast news of the family-camp murders during its women's programme on 16 June 1944, warning: "All those responsible for such massacres from top downwards will be called to account."{{sfn|Fleming|2014|p=215}} The Red Cross [[Maurice Rossel#Rossel's report|visited Theresienstadt]] in June 1944 and were persuaded by the SS that no one was being deported from there.{{sfn|Keren|1998|p=429}} The following month, about 2,000 women from the family camp were selected to be moved to other camps and 80 boys were moved to the men's camp; the remaining 7,000 were gassed between 10 and 12 July.{{sfn|Czech|2000|p=203}}