From discrimination to the 'family camp' at Auschwitz: National Socialist persecution of the gypsies

The racially based process of destruction formed a specific element of the National Socialist policy in comparison to the previous German policy on gypsies. Despite this the Nazi system initially was a combination of trying to settle them and driving them out. The gypsy camps after 1933 involved force and from 1938 gypsies were sent to concentration camps or deported to Poland (after the outbreak of war) to the ghetto in Lodz. Finally they were sent to 'Gypsy Family Camp' in Auschwitz.