Adelheid Bamberger (March 11, 1915 Berlin – presumably March/April 1945 in Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp)

Adelheid Bamberger came from a large family. She was a laborer and lived with her family and children Sylvia and Adolf in Munich. Some of her relatives were held by the SS in various concentration camps as early as 1941/42. Her brother Wilhelm Bamberger and brother-in-law met a violent death in one these camps in 1942. Her brother Hans Bamberger had to do forced labor at Dachau Concentration Camp for years.

In March 1943, Adelheid Bamberger and her children and other relatives were deported to the ‘gypsy camp’ at Auschwitz-Birkenau . Conditions in the transport and the camp were inhumane in every respect. Sylvia, her not yet one-year-old daughter and her two-year-old son Adolf died a short time after arrival, probably as a result of inadequate care. Her father Robert Bamberger died in Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in July 1943. Around 19,000 Sinti and Roma were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau or died as a result of starvation, disease, mistreatment and forced labor.

Adelheid Bamberger was transported to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in April 1944 and a little later brought to different satellite camps one after the other for forced labor. In the satellite camps at Schlieben, Altenburg and Taucha, which were part of Buchenwald Concentration Camp from the summer of 1944, she had to work for the armaments industry. Panzerfäuste (portable anti-tank systems) and grenade ammunition were manufactured in Altenburg. The inmates who were particularly persecuted for racial reasons were used for the extremely hazardous work of preparing and filling explosives. Taucha was the satellite camp in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp complex with the most women inmates persecuted as ‘Gypsies’. These women had to do back-breaking work in twelve-hour shifts.

On March 1, 1945, Adelheid Bamberger joined her older sisters Anna Reinhardt and 148 other gravely ill inmates in being sent to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, where all trace of her was lost. She and her sister Anna Reinhardt likely met a violent death there shortly before the liberation.