On 12 August 1944 at Auschwitz, the SS carried out the dismantling of Familenzigeunerlager, the Gypsy family camp in Auschwitz. The expression 'dismantle' was really just a euphemism, because in reality it meant the removal of all inmates. In the concentration camps there existed such a climate of fear, or simple resignation, so that the rebellions against a provision were very rare and isolated cases. The attempt had already been made on 16 May but, at the order to head to the gas chambers, four thousand Gypsies, including also women and children, had reacted with bars, sticks, stones and debris. The SS, not expecting such a reaction, had remained and had preferred to withdraw. The extermination was sent back to the night of 2 August of that same year, and included 2897 prisoners (over a thousand in the meantime had been transferred to Buchenwald, and others died of starvation).

On 2 August the memorial day of Porrajmos, the extermination of the Roma people, along with the memory of Blessed Zefirino Gimenez, a gypsy martyr.