Egon Petermann
Registered as a “Gypsy”, murdered in Auschwitz

Egon Petermann was born in Berlin on 28 February 1930. There, the police arrested him on 5 March 1943, and had him deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In August 1944, the SS transferred him to Buchenwald for forced labor. But the 14-year-old boy was too weak for the exhausting work and was put on the list for an extermination transport to Auschwitz on 25 September 1944. Willy Blum and his ten-year-old brother Rudolf were also on this deportation list.

Presumably, Egon Petermann was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau shortly after his arrival.

Photograph of Egon Petermann by the Rassenhygienische Forschungsstelle (Racial Hygiene Research Unit), ca. 1940.

Starting in 1937/38, the Reich Health Office had Sinti and Roma summoned by the police so it could perform “racial assessments.” The lists drawn up were later used for deportations to concentration camps.

(Bundesarchiv Berlin)

Buchenwald Concentration Camp prisoner registration file for Egon Petermann, 3 August 1944.

In the course of the dissolution of the “Gypsy family camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Egon Petermann was transferred to Buchenwald on 3 August. The black stamp in the lower right margin refers to his deportation back to Auschwitz on 26 September 1944.

(Arolsen Archives)

Note from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp labor office, 8 August 1944.

Of 918 Sinti and Roma who arrived from Auschwitz at Buchenwald on 3 August 1944, more than 300 were under the age of 18. Almost all of the older ones were transferred to Mittelbau-Dora. The youngest prisoners remained at Buchenwald. They were returned to Auschwitz a few weeks later, where they were murdered.

(Thür. Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar)

Deportation list for 26 September 1944 from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, 25 September 1944.

Number 88 on the list of 200 persons is the prisoner with the number 74728: Egon Petermann. On the same deportation list was Stefan Jerzy Zweig, whose name had been deleted and replaced by the Sinto Willy Blum.

(Arolsen Archives)