Miklós Nyiszli, the author of famous memoirs and a pathologist working in the nearby crematorium wrote that, on the day of liquidation of the Roma camp, there were 4,500 prisoners remaining there.
Rudolf Höss, commandant of KL Auschwitz, testified before Polish court that 4,000 Roma were murdered at that time.
It can thus be noticed that the number of Roma murdered in early August 1944 differ significantly between witnesses, but in general they are closer to over four thousand than to three thousand.
The study which has been most often referred to by researchers and journalists is Kalendarz wydarzeń w KL Auschwitz (Calendar of Events in KL Auschwitz) by Danuta Czech, published successively in subsequent editions of “Zeszyty oświęcimskie” (Auschwitz Studies) in the early 1960s, as well as being published separately in various languages thirty years later.
According to the author, what should be considered as the beginning of the Zigeunerlager liquidation action is the transfer from the BIIe section in Birkenau of over 1,500 Roma to blocks 10 and 11 on May 23, 1944. They were supposed to be waiting there for transfer to other camps in the Reich.
Under the date of July 29, 1944, the Calendar presents the number of men in the BIIe camp as 1,495 persons. According to Czech, the number of women incarcerated there at that time 'remains unknown'.
Nevertheless, three days later (August 1), according to the Employment Department's data the number of prisoners increased unexpectedly to 2,815 prisoners. According to Danuta Czech, this resulted from additions made by the person preparing the list (an SS man or a prisoner–schreiber) to the number of men and women incarcerated in the Roma camp.
On the day that followed, the decisive liquidation phase began: 1,408 men and women were led from the mother camp (supposedly Blocks 10 and 11) to the rail ramp in Birkenau and then transported to KL Buchenwald. 2,897 Roma still remaining in Birkenau were then killed by the SS in the gas chambers of crematorium V.
A request for histopathologic examination of the head of a 12-year old Roma boy signed by Dr. Josef Mengele