workingclasshistory: Today, 16 May, is European Romani Resistance Day, commemorating the Roma people

workingclasshistory:

Today, 16 May, is European Romani Resistance Day, commemorating the Roma people who fought the fascists during World War II. The date was chosen due to a Holocaust survivor stating that on 16 May 1944, there was a rebellion of Roma detainees at the Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp. However subsequent research by the Auschwitz Museum discovered that this date was most likely incorrect. It was actually in early April that a number of Roma prisoners refused orders from the SS to leave to work in Germany. Instead a Polish prisoner was ordered to make a list of Roma able to work to be transported later. By 2 August 1944, those Roma able to work had been transported elsewhere, when the SS came to take the others to the gas chambers. The prisoners armed themselves with crowbars and fought back, but were eventually overcome and gassed.
Pictured: a Romani resistance fighter during World War II https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1717878201730656/?type=3